Fig. 3.

In vitro and in vivo safety assay evaluation. a CCK-8 assay of ARPE-19 cells treated with RGD-PEI/SAA, RGD-PEI, mPEI/SAA, mPEI, and free SAA at different SAA concentrations for 24 h. The concentrations of RGD-PEI and mPEI were equivalent to those of the corresponding RGD-PEI/SAA and mPEI/SAA complexes. b Fluorescence microscopy images of ARPE-19 cells co-cultured with RGD-PEI/SAA at SAA concentrations of 0 µM (1), 20 µM (2), 50 µM (3), and 100 µM (4) for 24 h (the cytoplasm and the cell nuclei were stained with phalloidin-rhodamine and DAPI, respectively). The white bar represents 20 µm. Representative images of the HE stained section of retina/choroid/sclera complexes at day 7 post-intravitreal injection of PBS (c) and RGD-PEI/SAA (d) (20 µM, 2 µL/eye), showing no detectable injury. The scale bar is 100 µm