An in vitro analysis of the danger of diabetes on Retinal and Cardiac cells

High sugar levels in diabetics is know to cause deleterious effects on the eye and heart of individuals. This research studies the changes in both cell proliferation and oxidative stress on cultured retinal and cardiac cells. The entire series of experiments was performed in vitro with no use of live animals. The cell lines studied were ARPE19 human retinal epithelial and H9c2(2-1) Mouse embryonic cardiac fibroblasts. The two cell lines studied were obtained from the American type culture collection and were exposed to a series of glucose levels ( 5.5mM, 17.5mM,25nM,33mM,44mM,50mM ) in a variety of media approved for cell culture maintenance. Extremely high levels of glucose are know to cause medical issues for diabetics who tend to have loss of retinal function , such as macular degeneration and damage to the heart by excessive proliferation of cardiac muscle fibroblasts thus causing hardening of the walls of the heart. This research will explain the danger caused by diabetes in two cell culture models by use of controlled high glucose level and were studied for both proliferation and evidence of oxidative stress.