Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 10|pp 9031—9040

Role of Citicoline in an in vitro AMD model

Sonali Nashine¹, M. Cristina Kenney^1,²

¹Department of Ophthalmology, Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
²Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA

Received: January 2, 2020Accepted: March 31, 2020Published: May 29, 2020

Copyright © 2020 Nashine and Kinney. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 3.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Citicoline is the exogenous form of the nootropic, Cytidine 5'-diphosphate-choline that exerts its neuroprotective effects in the brain as well as in the eye. The current study characterized the cytoprotective effects of purified Citicoline in transmitochondrial AMD (Age-related Macular Degeneration) RPE cybrid cells which carry diseased mitochondria from clinically characterized AMD patients. The effects of Citicoline were examined via flow cytometry analysis of AnnexinV/ PI-stained cells, IncuCyte live-cell imaging analysis to quantify cells undergoing caspase-3/7-mediated apoptosis, analyses of gene expression profiles of apoptosis, hypoxia, and angiogenesis markers, and measurement of ROS levels and cell viability. Our results demonstrated that Citicoline when added exogenously alleviates apoptotic effects as evidenced by diminished AnnexinV/PI and Caspase-3/7 staining, downregulation of apoptosis genes, enhanced cell viability, and reduced oxidative stress in AMD RPE cybrid cells. In conclusion, our study identified Citicoline as a protector in AMD RPE cybrid cells in vitro. However, further studies are required to establish the merit of Citicoline as a cytoprotective molecule in AMD and to decipher the molecular underpinnings of its mechanism of action in AMD.