Dexamethasone prevents excessive cell death and reduces inflammation induced by mitomycin-C treatment of human Tenon's capsule fibroblasts

1. Shu-Wen Chang^1,2
2. Wei-Ting Ho¹
3. San-Fong Chou³
4. Tsan-Chi Chen¹

¹Department of Ophthalmology, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan;
²Department of Ophthalmology, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan;
³Department of Medical Research, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

Purpose: To investigate whether dexamethasone benefits in mitomycin C (MMC)-treated human Tenon's capsule fibroblasts (HTCFs).

Methods: Primary HTCFs from passages 3 to 6 were treated with MMC at 0.4 mg/mL for 5 minutes. After the treatment, HTCFs were incubated in DMEM with 10% fetal bovine serum and dexamethasone at 10-9, 10-7, 10-5 M. Control cells were treated with DMEM and were further incubated in the presence or absence of dexamethasone. After 3 days of incubation, the cell number was determined by quantification of genomic DNA and WST-1 assay. The culture media was collected to determine the concentration of IL-8.

Results: MMC (0.4 mg/ml) induced the cell death of HTCFs. With the addition dexamethasone, the cell death was reduced in a dose-dependent manner compared with MMC alone. The concentration of IL-8 in the culture medium was significantly enhanced after MMC treatment. Dexamethasone inhibited both IL-8 expression and production induced after MMC treatment in a dose-dependent manner.

Conclusion: MMC treatment increases cell death of HTCFs, which is reversed by the addition of dexamethasone. The MMC-related increase of IL-8 expression and production are also diminished by dexamethasone. These phenomena help to illustrate the beneficial effect of corticosteroid treatment following intraoperative application of MMC.