Aging
Navigate
Submit an Article
Research Paper|Volume 11, Issue 17|pp 6691—6713

PU-91 drug rescues human age-related macular degeneration RPE cells; implications for AMD therapeutics

Sonali Nashine1, Sudhakar R. Subramaniam2, Marilyn Chwa1, Anthony Nesburn1,3, Baruch D. Kuppermann1, Howard Federoff2, M. Cristina Kenney1,4
  • 1Department of Ophthalmology, Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
  • 2Department of Neurology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
  • 3Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA
  • 4Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
Received: June 3, 2019Accepted: August 9, 2019Published: September 2, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102179

Copyright © 2019 Nashine et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Since mitochondrial dysfunction is implicated in the pathogenesis of AMD, this study is based on the premise that repurposing of mitochondria-stabilizing FDA-approved drugs such as PU-91, might rescue AMD RPE cells from AMD mitochondria-induced damage. The PU-91 drug upregulates PGC-1α which is a critical regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis. Herein, we tested the therapeutic potential of PU-91 drug and examined the additive effects of treatment with PU-91 and esterase inhibitors i.e., EI-12 and EI-78, using the in vitro transmitochondrial AMD cell model. This model was created by fusing platelets obtained from AMD patients with Rho0 i.e., mitochondria-deficient, ARPE-19 cell lines. The resulting AMD RPE cell lines have identical nuclei but differ in their mitochondrial DNA content, which is derived from individual AMD patients. Briefly, we report significant improvement in cell survival, mitochondrial health, and antioxidant potential in PU-91-treated AMD RPE cells compared to their untreated counterparts. In conclusion, this study identifies PU 91 as a therapeutic candidate drug for AMD and repurposing of PU-91 will be a smoother transition from lab bench to clinic since the pharmacological profiles of PU-91 have been examined already.