Temporary Alleviation of MAPK by Arbutin Alleviates Oxidative Damage in the Retina and ARPE-19 Cells

Dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the main diseases that causes blindness in humans and the number of cases is increasing every year, but effective treatments are not available, arbutin (ARB) has been reported to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging effects in other age-related diseases. However, whether it can help treat dry AMD remains unknown.in this study, we found 10-100 µM ARB concentration-dependently reversed the H2O2-induced viability decline in HRPECs, and ARB inhibited H2O2-induced HRPEC ROS production and apoptosis by changing the expression of antioxidant and apoptosis-related genes and proteins. Transcriptome sequencing and western blotting showed that ARB reduced ERK1/2 and P-38 phosphorylation to prevent H2O2-induced oxidation damage. We concluded ARB reversed the H2O2-induced decline in HRPEC activity, which was related to inhibition of ROS production and apoptosis. The ERK1/2 and P38 MAPK signaling pathways may have mediated this process. Overall design: To explore the signaling pathway of arbutin against H2O2-induced human RPECs oxidative damage,Cells were pretreated for 24 h with or without 100 µM ARB and then treated with 600 µM H2O2 for 24 h