Pharmaceutical Induction of PGC-1α Promotes Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cell Metabolism and Protects against Oxidative Damage

Figure 1

ZLN005 upregulates PGC-1α and its downstream mitochondrial gene targets in ARPE-19 cells. (a) Relative gene expression (RE) of PGC-1α in ARPE-19 treated for 48 hours with 10 μM ZLN005 (ZLN, ) compared to vehicle (veh, ). (b) Representative protein blot of PGC-1α and α-tubulin bands and (c) quantification showed upregulation of PGC-1α protein expression with ZLN005 treatment (all conditions, ). (d) RPE-specific genes, BEST1 and RLBP1, are upregulated with ZLN005 treatment (veh, for all genes; ZLN, for all genes). (e) Treatment with 10 μM ZLN005 increases the mitochondrial dynamic gene, MFN1, and replication genes, TFAM and POLG (veh, for all genes; ZLN, for all genes). (f, g) These changes do not impact mitochondrial morphology, as observed through (f) MitoTracker imaging (red) and (g) quantification in median fluorescence intensity (MFI) per mm² (Unt, ; veh, ; ZLN, ). All gene expression data were analyzed using Student’s t-test. Statistical significance is represented as follows: ^ns, , , , and .

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