Abstract

Purpose The increasing prevalence of myopia is a global public health issue. Because of the complexity of myopia pathogenesis, current control methods for myopia have great limitations. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of photobiomodulation (PBM) on human sclera fibroblasts (HSFs) under hypoxia, in the hope of providing new ideas for myopia prevention and control. Methods Hypoxic cell model was established at 0, 6, 12, and 24 h time points to simulate myopia microenvironment and explore the optimal time point. Control, hypoxia, hypoxia plus light, and normal plus light cell models were set up for the experiments, and cells were incubated for 24 or 48 h after PBM (660 nm, 5 J/cm 2 ), followed by evaluation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) and collagen I a1 (COL1A1) proteins using Western blotting and immunofluorescence, and photo damage was detected by CCK-8, scratch test, and flow cytometry assays. We also used transfection technology to further elucidate the regulatory mechanism. Results The change of target proteins is most obvious when hypoxia lasts for 24 h ( p  < 0.01). PBM at 660 nm increased extracellular collagen content ( p  < 0.001) and downregulated expression of HIF-1α ( p  < 0.05). This treatment did not affect the migration and proliferation of cells ( p  > 0.05), and effectively inhibited apoptosis under hypoxia ( p  < 0.0001). After overexpression of HIF-1α, the effect of PBM was attenuated ( p  > 0.05). Conclusions Photobiomodulation at 660 nm promotes collagen synthesis via downregulation of HIF-1α expression without photodamage.