ARPE-19 retinal pigment epithelial cells are highly resistant to oxidative stress and exercise strict control over their lysosomal redox-active iron.

Normal retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells are postmitotic, long-lived and basically not replaced. Daily, they phagocytose substantial amounts of lipid-rich material (photoreceptor outer segment discs), and they do so in the most oxygenated part of the body-the retina. One would imagine that this state of affairs should be associated with a rapid formation of the age pigment lipofuscin (LF).

The superior retina performs better than the inferior retina when reading with eccentric viewing: a comparison in normal volunteers.

Purpose: Patients with an absolute central scotoma, such as in age-related macular degeneration, need to use eccentric viewing for reading. In the present study, we investigated whether there are differences in reading performance between the superior and inferior retina.

Methods: Twelve volunteers with normal vision, aged 25-58 years and able to maintain stable eccentric viewing, were studied in a scanning laser ophthalmoscope while reading a line of text, 6 degrees above or below a fixation line (series A).