The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is the most external layer of the retina, placed between the photoreceptors which collect the light and the blood supply from the choroid 1. Altogether, D-FFOCT appears to be an innovative method to follow degenerative disease evolution and could be an appreciated method in the future for live patient diagnostics and to direct treatment choice. In order to decipher the subcellular contributions to these dynamic profiles, we performed immunohistochemistry to identify which organelles generate the signal and found mitochondria to be the main contributor to D-FFOCT contrast.
In this study, we quantified wound healing parameters on the stressed RPE, and observed different cell phenotypes, displayed by the D-FFOCT signal. In this way, we monitored primary porcine and human stem cell-derived RPE cells in stress model conditions by performing scratch assays.
To fill this gap, we propose dynamic full-field OCT (D-FFOCT) as a candidate for live observation of in vitro RPE phenotype. But as crucial as understanding both healthy and pathological RPE cell physiology is for those diseases, no current technique allows subcellular in vivo or in vitro live observation of this critical cell layer. In case of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the atrophy of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) precedes neural dystrophy. Retinal degenerative diseases lead to the blindness of millions of people around the world.