The effects of autophagy inhibition on cytotoxicity in ocular cells treated with vital dyes.

<p>(A) ARPE19 and (B) 661W cells were treated with autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (CQ, 20 μM) for 1 h. The cells were treated with ICG or BBG (0.05 mg/ml) for 30 mins and then recovered with CQ for 24 h to determine cell viability with CellTiter Glo. (C) ARPE-19 cells were infected with shRNA against ATG5 or ATG7 or (E) transfected with siRNA against ATG5, ATG7 or BECN1. The knockdown efficiency was verified with immunoblotting. (D and F) The knockdowned cells were exposed to ICG or BBG as panel A to evaluate cytotoxicity. The quantitative results are shown as the means ± SEM from three independent experiments.