The choroid, which provides vascular supply to the outer retina, demonstrates progressive degeneration in aging and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). However mechanisms that maintain or compromise choroidal homeostasis are obscure. We discovered that the ablation of choroidal macrophages via CSF1R blockade was associated with choroidal vascular atrophy and retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) changes including structural disruption, downregulation of visual cycle genes, and altered angiogenic factor expression. Suspending CSF1R blockade following ablation enabled spontaneous macrophage regeneration, which fully restored original macrophage distributions and morphologies. Macrophage regeneration was accompanied by arrested vascular degeneration and ameliorated pathological RPE alterations. These findings suggest that choroidal macrophages play a previously unappreciated trophic role in maintaining choroidal vasculature and RPE cells, implicating insufficiency in choroidal macrophage function as a factor in aging- and AMD-associated pathology. Modulating macrophage function may constitute a strategy for the therapeutic preservation of the choroid and RPE in age-related retinal disorders.
Keywords: RPE disorganization; aging; choroid; choroidal macrophage; choroidal vasculature; immunology; inflammation; mouse; neuroscience.