APOE isoforms control pathogenic subretinal inflammation in age-related macular degeneration

Abstract

Contrary to Alzheimer's disease (AD), the APOE2 allele increases and the APOE4 allele reduces the risk to develop age-related macular degeneration (AMD) compared with the most common APOE3 allele. The underlying mechanism for this association with AMD and the reason for the puzzling difference with AD are unknown. We previously demonstrated that pathogenic subretinal mononuclear phagocytes (MPs) accumulate in Cx3cr1-deficient mice due to the overexpression of APOE, interleukin-6, and CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2). We here show using targeted replacement mice expressing the human APOE isoforms (TRE2, TRE3, and TRE4) that MPs of TRE2 mice express increased levels of APOE, interleukin-6, and CCL2 and develop subretinal MP accumulation, photoreceptor degeneration, and exaggerated choroidal neovascularization similar to AMD. Pharmacological inhibition of the cytokine induction inhibited the pathogenic subretinal inflammation. In the context of APOE-dependent subretinal inflammation in Cx3cr1GFP/GFP mice, the APOE4 allele led to diminished APOE and CCL2 levels and protected Cx3cr1GFP/GFP mice against harmful subretinal MP accumulation observed in Cx3cr1GFP/GFPTRE3 mice. Our study shows that pathogenic subretinal inflammation is APOE isoform-dependent and provides the rationale for the previously unexplained implication of the APOE2 isoform as a risk factor and the APOE4 isoform as a protective factor in AMD pathogenesis.