AIM: To explore the effect of lycium barbarum polysaccharides(LBP)on inflammatory response of human retinal pigment epithelial cells(ARPE-19)induced by lipopolysaccharide(LPS)and its possible signal pathway.

METHODS: ARPE-19 cells were stimulated by LPS in vitro to construct the inflammatory injury cell model. Primarily, the cells were divided into five groups randomly. The blank group was cultured in complete medium, and the LPS group was stimulated with complete medium containing 10μg/mL LPS for 24h. The low, medium and high concentration LBP groups were incubated with complete medium importing 0.1, 0.5 and 1mg/mL LBP for 24h separately, and then stimulated with complete medium containing 10μg/mL LPS for 24h. We used the CCK-8 method to observe the cell survival rate, real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR to detect the mRNA expression of inflammatory factors and Western blot to test the changes of phosphorylated protein within the signaling pathway of NF-κB/MAPK.

RESULTS: Compared with normal cells, the survival rate of ARPE-19 cells was decreased after the LPS stimulation. With the increase of exogenous LBP concentration, the survival rate of ARPE-19 cell was gradually increased, while the inflammatory factors expression of cytokines IL-1β, IL-6 and MCP-1 were reduced accompany with the phosphorylated proteins(p-p65, P-IκBα, p-JNK, p-ERK and p-p38)of NF-κB/MAPK signaling pathway were decreased.

CONCLUSION: LBP prevents LPS-induced inflammatory response of ARPE-19 by inhibiting the intracellular inflammatory factors and the phosphorylation of the related protein within NF-κB/MAPK signaling pathway.