Vitamin A incorporation into lipofuscin-like inclusions in the retinal pigment epithelium.

Intravitreal injection of the protease inhibitor leupeptin causes a rapid accumulation of lipofuscin-like autofluorescent inclusions in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of the eye. In vitamin A-deprived animals, similar inclusions form in response to leupeptin treatment, but they do not become autofluorescent. Because vitamin A is necessary to the development of fluorescence, it appears likely that retinoids are directly incorporated into the inclusions. Experiments were conducted to determine whether this is the case. Rats were reared on a diet containing retinoic acid as the only retinoid. Retinoic acid cannot be utilized in visual transduction by the retina. When the eyes had been over 90% depleted of visual cycle retinoids, the animals were given a single intramuscular injection of 3H-all-trans retinol. After 7 days, when visual cycle retinoids had returned to an average of almost 70% of normal, the animals were given an intravitreal injection of leupeptin in each eye. At either 1 day or 7 days after the leupeptin treatment, some of the animals were dark-adapted for at least 12 h. The eyes were enucleated and fixed under dim red light. A region of each retina just superior to the optic nerve head was examined with electron microscopic autoradiography. At both one day and 7 days after the leupeptin treatment, the radiolabel in the RPE was primarily associated with the leupeptin induced inclusion bodies. Label was also present in the photoreceptor outer segments. The localization of vitamin A to the leupeptin-induced inclusions in the RPE strongly suggests that vitamin A is covalently bound to outer segment proteins that have been phagocytosed by the RPE but remain undegraded due to protease inhibition. This bound vitamin A is probably responsible for the autofluorescence of the leupeptin-induced inclusions. Vitamin A is not likely to be bound through a Schiff base linkage, since retinal-Schiff base compounds do not exhibit lipofuscin-like fluorescence.