Abstract
This study investigated visual response properties of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) under high glucose levels. Extracellular single-unit responses of RGCs from mouse retinas were recorded. And the eyecup was prepared as a flat mount in a recording chamber and superfused with Ames medium. The averaged RF size of the ON RGCs (34.1±2.9, n=14) was significantly smaller than the OFF RGCs under the HG (49.3±0.3, n=12) (P<0.0001) conditions. The same reduction pattern was also observed in the osmotic control group (HM) between ON and OFF RGCs (P<0.0001). The averaged luminance threshold (LT) of ON RGCs increased significantly under HG or HM (HG: P<0.0001; HM: P<0.0002). OFF RGCs exhibited a similar response pattern under the same conditions (HG: P<0.01; HM: P<0.0002). The averaged contrast gain of ON cells was significantly lower than that of OFF cells with the HM treatment (P<0.015, unpaired Student’s t test). The averaged contrast gain of ON cells was significantly higher than OFF cells with the HG treatment (P<0.0001). The present results suggest that HG reduced receptive field center size, suppressed luminance threshold, and attenuated contrast gain of RGCs. The impact of HG on ON and OFF RGCs may be mediated via different mechanisms.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (2015CB351806 to Mingliang Pu), the National Science Foundation of China (31571091 to Mingliang Pu) and the Science and Technology Planning Project of China Hunan Provincial Science and Technology Department (2015SK2046 to Chunxia **ao).
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Zhou, Y., **ao, C. & Pu, M. High glucose levels impact visual response properties of retinal ganglion cells in C57 mice—An in vitro physiological study. Sci. China Life Sci. 60, 1428–1435 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-017-9106-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-017-9106-6