The vitamines C and E protect cultures of bovine lens epithelia from lighttoxicity (blue light 430 nm, UV-A-light 300-400 nm)

Background: In 1992 Radlmaier showed that catalase can protect bovine lens epithelial cultures from blue light. The following experiments have the aim to examine, if vitamin C and E have protective functions, also. Material and methods: 367 cultures of bovine lens epithelial cells were inc ubated in Medium 199 added by 20 % foetal calf serum FCS, by 125 I.U./ml pe nicillin, by 125 mg/ml Streptomycin, by 0.31 mug/ml amphotericin B, by 2 % L-Glutamin (200 mM), and by 1.25 % Hepesbuffer. The incubation temperature was kept at 36 degreesC at a pCO(2) of 5 %. in order to avoid secondary mor phologic alterations, we experimented only on the second to the third subcu lture. Light exposure followed three days after addition of the substances such as Cebion 500 (R) ad injectionem (6 mg/dl) and E-Vicotrat (R) ad injec tionem (0,5 mg/dl). The blue light (420-430 nm, Draeger) was applied in a b aby bed at 36 degreesC for four hours (1,1 mW/cm). The UV-A lamp was constr ucted and described by Heller [7]; at a wave length of 300-400 nm, the irra diation time was 10 minutes at 100 mW/cm(2). In morphologic evaluation we l ooked for criteria such as cell diameter, cellular wall alterations, cellul ar inclusions and vacuoles. The cell count was done after staining with the vital dye trypan-blue in Neubauer's chamber, in statistic evaluation we us ed the pair comparison of Tuckey and Kruskall-Wallis-Test. Results: After addition of 0,5 mg/ml vitamin E: In 89 cultures, morphologic evaluation and cell count showed a significant protection against light to xicity: After Uv-A-irradiation we counted 50% more living cells and after b lue light 30 % more. After addition of 6 mg/ml Cebion vitamin C: Morphologi c evaluation and cell count of 223 cultures showed them also to be signifin anty protected: after irradiation by UV-A we counted 25 % more and after ex position to blue light 15 % more living cells. Conclusion: The demonstrated experiments significantly showed, that vitamin C and Vitamin E can protect lens epithetial cultures from toxic stress by blue and by UV-A light and might delay cataract formation in man.