[Establishment of in vitro culture of bovine trabecular meshwork cells and their phagocytosis].

OBJECTIVE

To study the role of abnormality of phagocytosis of trabecular meshwork cells in the pathogenesis of glaucoma.

METHOD

In vitro trabecular meshwork cell culture was successfully established from excised bovine aqueous outflow pathway. Using latex microspheres 0.6 micron in diameter as markers, we investigated the phagocytosis of cultured bovine trabecular cells and its influential factors qualitatively and quantitatively.

RESULTS

Immunohistochemical staining studies have shown that trabecular cells secrete fibronectin and laminin. It is shown that bovine trabecular cells in vitro had strong phagocytic ability to ingest the particles, the number of latex beads in cells was increased with the prolongation of time in culture, and by 24 hours of incubation, the average number of beads in each cell was 40.5 +/- 6.7, in the mean time marked morphological and damaging changes, even death, of trabecular cells occurred. Epinephrine and cortisone inhibited significantly the phagocytosis of cells (P < 0.05), while epidermal growth factor had no such effect.

CONCLUSION

The phagocytosis of trabecular cells is important to keep aqueous humour outflow patent, and abnormal phagocytosis of trabecular cells might be related to the pathogenesis of primary glaucoma.