Inhibition of heat shock protein 47 suppressed collagen production in Tenon's capsule fibroblasts.

Introduction: Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, and conjunctival bleb scarring remains the most frequent reason for the failure of glaucoma filtration surgery. Excessive proliferation of fibroblasts from Tenon's capsule and excessive deposition of collagen contribute to the scarification of the conjunctival bleb. Heat shock protein 47 (HSP47) is assumed to act as a collagen-specific molecular chaperone, and thereby involved in the pathogenesis of fibrotic diseases. Therefore, we investigated the effect of HSP47 knockout against collagen type I (COLI) production in rat tenon's fibroblasts.

Material and methods: Newborn rat tenon's fibroblasts were cultured and verified by anti-vimentin antibody. Transfection efficiency of small interference RNA targeted against HSP47 was confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) at 48 h after siRNA transfection and by western blot at 72 h after transfection. The mRNA and protein expression of HSP 47 and COLI were detected by RT-qPCR and western blot. The proliferation of cells was measured by cell counting kit-8 assay.

Results: HSP47 siRNA down-regulated the mRNA and protein levels of HSP47 in rat Tenon's fibroblasts, and suppressed the mRNA and protein expression of COLI. Moreover, HSP47 siRNA had no significant effect on proliferation of rat Tenon's fibroblasts.

Conclusions: HSP47 siRNA inhibits the production of COLI in rat Tenon's fibroblasts, and may be the potential therapeutic method in bleb scarring after glaucoma filtration surgery.