Abstract
The retinal pigment epithelium is responsible for the removal of the continuously shedded terminal disks of rod outer segments. As such, in mammalian retinas, each pigment epithelial cell engulfs and destroys thousands of disks every day (1). The pigment epithelium possesses a highly developed phagolysosomal system, which has to digest these considerable amounts of exogenous material for a lifetime. In contrast to phagocytic cells of the reticuloendothelial system, the pigment epithelium has a very low rate of mitosis and is likely to accumulate with time a great deal of non-digestible material, which in turn might impair cellular function and be at the origin of some of the retinopathies observed in the ageing eye (2).
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Leuenberger, P.M. (1975). The Phagolysosomal System of the Retinal Pigment Epithelium in Ageing Rats. In: Cristofalo, V.J., Holečková, E. (eds) Cell Impairment in Aging and Development. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 53. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0731-1_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0731-1_22
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