Isolation and culture of primary mouse retinal pigmented epithelial cells.

Abstract

A number of cases of retinal degeneration are caused by mutations in genes that are expressed in the retinal pigmented epithelial (rpe) cells. These genes include rpe65 (gu et al., 1997; marlhens et al., 1997), rgr (chen et al., 1996; morimura et al., 1999), mertk (gal et al., 2000; vollrath et al., 2001), pedf (goliath et al., 1996), and myo7a (weil et al., 1995; liu et al., 1998b). To study the normal function of the products of these genes, the pathology caused by mutations in the genes, as well as methods of therapy, cultured rpe cells would provide an invaluable tool. Because passaged and immortalized rpe cells quickly lose some characteristics of polarized epithelial cells (nabi et al., 1993; davis et al., 1995), use of primary cultures of rpe cells is often a necessity.