Engineering of Human Corneal Endothelial Cells

Overview

Journal Int J Med Sci

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2019 Jun 8

PMID 31171901

Citations 6

Authors

Qin Zhu

Yingting Zhu

Sean Tighe

Yongsong Liu

Min Hu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Human corneal endothelial cells are responsible for controlling corneal transparency, however they are notorious for their limited proliferative capability. Thus, damage to these cells may cause irreversible blindness. Currently, the only way to cure blindness caused by corneal endothelial dysfunction is via corneal transplantation of a cadaver donor cornea with healthy corneal endothelium. Due to severe shortage of donor corneas worldwide, it has become paramount to develop human corneal endothelial grafts that can subsequently be transplanted in humans. Recently, we have reported effective expansion of human corneal endothelial cells by reprogramming the cells into progenitor status through use of p120-Kaiso siRNA knockdown. This new reprogramming approach circumvents the need of using induced pluripotent stem cells or embryonic stem cells. Successful promotion of this technology will encourage scientists to re-think how "contact inhibition" can safely be perturbed to our benefit, i.e., effective engineering of an -like tissue while successful maintaining the normal phenotype. In this review, we present current advances in reprogramming corneal endothelial cells , detail the methods to successful engineer human corneal endothelial grafts, and discuss their future clinical applications to cure corneal blindness.

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