Choroidal lutein

Izumi-Nagai, K., N. Nagai et al. (2007). Macular pigment lutein is antiinflammatory in preventing choroidal neovascularization. Arterioscler. Thromb. Vase. Biol., Oct. 11 [Epub ahead of print]. 

The presence of only two dietary carotenoids in the retina, lutein and zeaxanthin, out of about 14 normally present in the plasma indicates their highly specific uptake and retention (Bernstein et al., 2001 Bone and Landrum, 1992 Bone et al., 1988,1997,1993 Davies and Morland, 2004 Khachik et al., 1997, 2002). The retina-blood barrier is formed by the tight zonulae occludentes of the endothelial cells in the inner retina and of the RPE, a monolayer of cells which separates the outer retina from its choroidal blood supply (Strauss, 2005). 

So far, we have focused mainly on the potential pathways of carotenoid uptake by the RPE from the choroidal blood supply. As mentioned earlier, POS contain lutein and zeaxanthin, and their distal tips are phagocytosed by the RPE. Therefore POS is another source of xanthophylls in the RPE and this pathway of carotenoid delivery and their further fate can be easily tested in cultured RPE. It has been shown that exposure of RPE cells in vitro to HDL stimulates efflux of phospholipids from phagocytosed POS out of the cell (Ishida et al., 2006). Thus it is of interest to determine whether that transport may potentially include xanthophylls and whether other types of lipoproteins may... 

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