Figure 1.

Hypoxia enhances endothelial cell attachment to retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cell layers. RPE cells were maintained under normoxic (20% pO₂) and hypoxic (1% pO₂) conditions for 48 h prior to cell attachment. Fluorescently labeled retinal endothelial cells (RECs) were allowed to attach for 1 h and fixed prior to visualization (A) by fluorescence microscopy and (B) counting (4 fields/well; 3 wells/condition; biological replicates (N) = 3; technical replicates (n) = 4). The data in panel (B) are expressed as the average number of cells per field ± SEM. Hypoxia caused a statistically significant increase in REC attachment (p < 0.05).