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Long‐term cultivation of corneal stem cells – possible applications from benchside to bedside
Author(s) -
Petrovski G.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-3768.2015.0272
Subject(s) - stromal cell , stem cell , extracellular matrix , cornea , transplantation , induced pluripotent stem cell , explant culture , pathology , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , embryonic stem cell , medicine , in vitro , surgery , neuroscience , biochemistry , gene
Summary Long‐term cultures of corneal stem cells can be developed for future tissue engineering and clinical applications. Cornea limbal and stromal tissue explants can be cultivated and expanded for longer periods of time (months) under special conditions and without the use of scaffolds. Viable 3D cell outgrowth from the explants can be achieved within 4 weeks time. The outgrowing limbal epithelial stem cells ( LESC s) revealed a unique fingerprint of markers specific for stemness, proliferation, limbal epithelial cells and differentiated cornea epithelial cells. Morphological and immunostaining analysis concluded that long‐term culturing can form stratified 3D tissue layers with a clear extracellular matrix deposition and organization of collagen, which was similar to that formed by corneal stromal stem cells ( CSSC s). Overall, modelling 3D long‐term structures of corneal stem cells can be used for generating highly pluripotent, long‐standing 3D cultures from limbal and stromal stem cells, which can be used for further research purposes and clinical transplantation.