APAF1 and Abnormal retinal morphology: In retinal diseases, studies showed that HDACis treatment upregulated the expression of Hsp70, downregulated the expression of apaf-1 and caspase 3, inhibited the translocation of cytochrome C and activation of Akt and Erk, increased the rate of cell survival, and decreased the apoptosis process [14, 49, 58].