As susceptibility to oxidative stress and impaired autophagy was observed to be accompanied by the up-regulation of AMD-associated genes such as apolipoprotein E (APOE) expression in primary RPE cells from AMD patients (Golestaneh et al, 2017), we quantified the expression of APOE and found its protein level increased in shPGC-1α RPE cells at 14 d (Fig 2H). Here, APOE is linked to age-related macular degeneration.