Dopamine is known to play an important role in the pathophysiological process of myopia development relevant to the ambient lighting, but it is still poorly understood about how lighting regulates dopamine and its interaction with dopamine receptors to mediate the pathogenic signal transduction leading to alterations of ocular globe and the pathogenesis of myopia. Many studies have highlighted changes of ocular dopamine amount in response to different lighting conditions, but little attention has been paid to the dopamine receptors during these processes. Here we examined the effects of different lighting exposures on the expression of dopamine receptors in rat R28 retinal precursor cells. R28 cells normally grown in dark were exposed to a low (10 lux) or high (500 lux) intensity of a source of LED white light (5000 K-6000 K) for 12 h and total RNA was isolated either immediately or after certain time continuous growing in dark. Both conventional and real-time RT-PCR were performed to determine the expression of all five different dopamine receptors in cells after treatments. While the transcripts of dopamine D2, D3, and D4 receptors were not detected in the total RNA preparations of all the cells, those of D1 and D5 receptors (DRD1 and DRD5) were induced by lighting in contrast to the dark control. Elevated levels of DRD1 and DRD5 mRNA returned back close to the original levels once the cells were maintained in dark after light exposures. Immunofluorescence microscopy using a specific antibody confirmed an increase in the immunoreactivity of DRD1 in the cells exposed to 500 lux lighting versus dark control. Notably, treatments of R28 cells with nanomolar dosages of dopamine (0-500 nM) directly downregulated expression of both DRD1 and DRD5, whereas haloperidol (0-50 nM), a DRD2 antagonist, significantly induced expression of DRD1. These results suggest that dopamine receptors in the retinal cells might actively respond to the environmental lighting to act as an important player in the activation of the dopaminergic system in the ocular structures relevant to the lighting-induced pathogenic development of myopia. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.