{"doi":"10.1167/tvst.9.6.18","title":"Investigating the Effect of Esterification on Retinal Pigment Epithelial Uptake Using Rhodamine B Derivatives","abstract":"Purpose: This study investigated the effects of esterification and increased lipophilicity on cellular penetration, accumulation and retention in ARPE-19-nic cells using ester functionalized rhodamine B dyes. Methods: Rhodamine B was esterified to generate four dyes with increasing lipophilicity. Cellular uptake, retention and mitochondrial localization were investigated in vitro using ARPE-19-nic cells using direct intracellular and extracellular and mitochondrial fluorescence quantitation, confocal and high-resolution live cell imaging and co-localization with Mito-GFP. Results: Cellular penetrance, mitochondrial accumulation, and retention of the esterified dyes were increased in ARPE-19-nic cells compared with the nonesterified parent dye by direct fluorescence quantitation. Imaging demonstrated intracellular accumulation was confined to mitochondria as confirmed by colocalization with Mito-GFP. Conclusions: Esterification is an effective way to increase lipophilicity of a dye to improve cellular penetration of chemical entities. These observations may be key to improving retinal drug delivery for retinal pigment epithelium-based diseases. Translational Relevance: Understanding the intracellular distribution of drugs into retinal pigment epithelium cells is a critical component for identifying potential therapies for retinal pigment epithelium-based diseases.","journal":"Translational Vision Science & Technology","year":2020,"id":113984,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9682,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":536773,"name":"Ruvanthi N. Kularatne","orcid":"0000-0002-6916-2011","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":536774,"name":"Timothy Catchpole","orcid":"0000-0003-4708-083X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":537387,"name":"Alison Takacs","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":537388,"name":"Abigail H. Christie","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":537389,"name":"Alexa Gilfoyle","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336001,"name":"Timothy Nguyen","orcid":"0000-0002-2329-0827","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":536775,"name":"Mihaela C. Stefan","orcid":"0000-0003-2475-4635","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":536776,"name":"Karl G. Csaky","orcid":"0000-0002-5466-8829","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":536772,"name":"Chandima Bulumulla","orcid":"0000-0003-0324-2008","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":35,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:13:25.964732Z","pmid":"32821515","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}