AIM: To investigate the effect of modified Zhujing pill on retinal thickness and apoptosis in form deprivation myopia(FDM)mice.

METHODS: Totally 72 C57BL/6J mice aged 3-week-old were randomly divided into control group 1, model group 1, intervention group 1, control group 2, model group 2 and intervention group 2, with 12 mice in each group. The first three groups were tested for 3wk and the last three groups were tested for 6wk, except for the groups of control 1 and control 2, all the mice used translucent goggles to cover their right eyes for form deprivation. The mice of intervention 1 and intervention 2 were respectively given intragastric administration modified Zhujing pill suspension 0.546g/(kg·d)(0.1mL/d)for 3wk at the beginning and after 3wk of the experiment. Same amount of saline was given to mice in other groups at the same time of modeling. The eye axis was measured before and after the experiment. At the end of the experiment, the eye of mice was taken for HE staining to observe the thickness changes of each layer of retina. Immunohistochemistry(IHC)and western blotting(WB)were used to detect Bcl-2 and Caspase3 expression of protein.

RESULTS: At the end of the experiment, the axis of model group 1 was significantly higher than that of control group 1(P<0.01), the axis of intervention group 1 was significantly lower than that of model group 1(P<0.01), and the axis of model group 2 was significantly higher than that of control group 2(P<0.01), the eye axis of intervention group 2 was significantly lower than that of model group 2(P<0.01); HE staining showed that the thickness of NFL and ONL of model group 1 was significantly thinner than that of control group 1(P<0.01). The thickness of INL of model group 1 was significantly thinner than that of control group 1(P<0.05), and the thickness of NFL, INL and ONL of intervention group 1 was significantly higher than that of model group 1(P<0.05); The thickness of NFL, INL and ONL model group 2 was significantly thinner than that of control group 1(P<0.01); IHC testing showed that the average optical density of Bcl-2 protein in model group 1 was significantly lower than that of control group 1(P<0.05), which in intervention group 1 was significantly higher than that of model group 1(P<0.01), and which in the average optical density of Bcl-2 protein of model group 2 was significantly lower than that of control group 2(P<0.01), which in intervention group 2 was significantly higher than that of model group 2(P<0.01); Caspase 3 protein average optical density of model group 1 was significantly higher than that of control group 1(P<0.01), which in intervention group 1 was significantly lower than that of model group 1(P<0.01), which in model group 2 was significantly higher than that of control group 2(P<0.05), which in intervention group 2 was significantly lower than that of model group 2(P<0.01); WB test proved that the relative expression level of Bcl-2 protein in model group 1 was significantly lower than that of control group 1(P<0.01), which in intervention group 1 was significantly higher than that of model group 1(P<0.01), and which in model group 2 was significantly lower than that of control group 2(P<0.01), which in intervention group 2 was significantly higher than that of model group 2(P<0.01); The relative expression level of Caspase3 protein in model group 1 was significantly higher than that of control group 1(P<0.01), which in intervention group 1 was significantly lower than that of model group 1(P<0.01), the intervention group 2 was significantly lower than that of model group 2.

CONCLUSION: The results show that the modified Zhujing pill can interfere with the pathological changes of retinal thickness thinning in the process of myopia and formed myopia mice by regulating the expression of apoptosis-related proteins Bcl-2 and Caspase3, and alleviating the apoptosis of retinal cells in myopia formation and myopia mice.