G C A T T A C G G C A T genes Article The Expression of Decidual Protein Induced by Progesterone (DEPP) Is Controlled by Three Distal Consensus Hypoxia Responsive Element (HRE) in Hypoxic Retinal Epithelial Cells Katrin Klee 1,2, Federica Storti 1, Jordi Maggi 2,3 , Vyara Todorova 1,4, Duygu Karademir 1,2, Wolfgang Berger 2,3,4, Marijana Samardzija 1 and Christian Grimm 1,2,4,* 1 Department of Ophthalmology, Lab for Retinal Cell Biology, University of Zurich, 8952 Schlieren, Switzerland;
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[email protected] (M.S.) 2 Center for Integrative Human Physiology (ZIHP), University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland;
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[email protected] (W.B.) 3 Institute of Medical Molecular Genetic, University of Zurich, 8952 Schlieren, Switzerland 4 Neuroscience Center, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +41-43-253-3001 Received: 19 November 2019; Accepted: 14 January 2020; Published: 18 January 2020 Abstract: Hypoxia affects the development and/or progression of several retinopathies. Decidual protein induced by progesterone (DEPP) has been identified as a hypoxia-responsive gene that may be part of cellular pathways such as autophagy and connected to retinal diseases. To increase our understanding of DEPP regulation in the eye, we defined its expression pattern in mouse and human retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Interestingly, DEPP expression was increased in an age-dependent way in the central human RPE.