Inhibitory effects of anthocyanin on oxidative stress injury and epithelial-mesenchymal transition of human lens epithelial cells

Anthocyanin is a water-soluble flavonoid pigment which is widely found in plants. Studies showed that anthocyanin had protective effect on vision. However, whether anthocyanin has therapeutic effect on cataract remain unclear. In this study, we established the age-related and posterior capsule opacification cataract cell models through inducing oxidative damage of human lens epithelial cells (HLECs) by H₂O₂ and inducing epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) by transforming growth factor β₂ (TGF-β₂). The preventative effects of anthocyanin on markers of oxidative damage and EMT were determined by respective assay kits and PCR analysis. Anthocyanin was beneficial to reduce oxidative stress of HLECs, protecting cells from H₂O₂ induced damage and increasing α-crystallin expression. The potential mechanisms might be that anthocyanin increased the activities of SOD and GSH-Px, which contributes to reduce cellular ROS and MDA level. Besides, anthocyanin inhibited Ca²⁺ overload, which contributes to protection of cell from apoptosis. Meanwhile, anthocyanin had inhibitory effect on EMT, slowed down cell proliferation, migration caused by TGF-β₂ through decreasing mRNA expression levels of EMT markers including COL1A1, COL1A2, COL3, COL4, Fn and α-SMA. The results suggest that anthocyanin could protect HLECs from oxidative damage induced by H₂O₂ and cell proliferation, migration and EMT induced by TGF-β₂, which indicated that anthocyanin may have protective and therapeutic effects on age-related cataract and posterior capsule opacification.