Figure 7

Figure 7

InP/ZnS QDs, endocytosed by RPE cells, caused retinal degenerative damage involved in mitophagy and ferroptosis due to spliceosome inhibition. a) The scheme shows the interaction between RPE and PR.^[52, ^53] b) The representative TEM images of the structure of RPE and the outer segment (OS) of PR of zebrafish at 72 hpf. The yellow asterisk indicates the damaged OS discs. The scale bar is 10 µm and 500 nm, respectively. c) KEGG pathway of the DEGs of RPE between control and InP/ZnS QDs exposure group based on the scRNA‐seq data. d) The representative images of mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) showed InP/ZnS QDs endocytosed by RPE. The In(115) was marked with green, and DNA (cell nuclei) stained with Ir(193) was marked with blue. The scale bar is 50 µm. e) The signal intensity of In(115) was determined using by ImageJ, n = 6. f, g) The expression level of splicing factors in RPE was analyzed by Rstudio f) and qPCR g), n = 4. h,i) The spliced, and unspliced mRNA level of gpx4b h) and fth1a i) were examined by Rstudio and qPCR j,k). l) The relative protein expression level of PRPF8 in hRPE cells after different doses of InP/ZnS QDs treatment. m) The representative images of the normal mitochondria left), ferroptosis center) and mitophagy right) mitochondria in control and InP/ZnS QDs exposure group. The purple arrow indicates ferroptosis, the blue arrow indicates mitophagy, scale bar is 1 µm and 200 nm, respectively. n) the C11 BODIPY staining measured the lipid peroxidation level in control and InP/ZnS QDs exposure group, scale bar is 30 µm. o) The representative images of the JC‐1 aggregate and JC‐1 monomer in control and InP/ZnS QDs exposure group. The scale bar is 30 µm. The data are presented as mean ± SE. Significant change among different groups (p < 0.05) is indicated by the different letters on the bar.