Figure 2. Effects of advanced glycation end-products and LY294002 on Robo1 and slit2 mRNA levels in human retinal pigment epithelium cells as measured by real-time RT–PCR. A: Robo1 expression in human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells was significantly increased at the mRNA (mRNA) level after a 24 h treatment of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) as measured by real-time RT–PCR. LY294002 (10 uM) blocks the expression of robo1 under conditions of AGEs (20 ug/ml). B: Slit2 expression in human RPE cells was also increased at the mRNA level after AGEs. The expression of slit2 in response to AGEs (20 ug/ml) decreased after treating cells with LY294002 (10 uM) versus treating the cells with AGEs (20 ug/ml) alone. Values provided are the mean±SD of three independent experiments. Asterisks denote values significantly different between the treated and control groups (p<0.05). Double asterisks denote values significantly different between the LY294002 (10 uM) group and the AGEs (20 ug/ml) group (p<0.01). The relative expression level of the control group cell was set to 1.