A study of capillary pericyte viability on extracellular matrix produced by endothelial cells in high glucose

Thickening of the basement membrane and selective loss of pericytes occur early in diabetic retinopathy. As we showed previously that pericyte adhesion is impaired on extracellular matrix produced by endothelial cells in high hexose concentrations, we aimed to verify if altered adhesion could influence pericyte viability and replication. Conditioned extracellular matrices were obtained by growing human umbilical vein endothelial cells in media...