The Corneal limbus – a region on the front surface of the eye – harbors special stem cells that could treat a range of conditions including age related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, say scientists at the University of Bristol and the University of Southampton, UK.
A false-color image of stem cells from human corneal limbus. Scale bar – 100 µm. Image credit: Chen X et al.
The team, led by Prof Andrew Lotery of the University of Southampton, showed that stem cells can be cultured from the Corneal limbus in vitro.
Under the correct culture conditions, these cells could be directed to behave like the cells needed to see light – photoreceptor cells.
“These cells are readily accessible, and they have surprising plasticity, which makes them an attractive cell resource for future therapies,” Prof Lotery said.
“This would help avoid complications with rejection or contamination because the cells taken from the eye would be returned to the same patient.”
“More research is now needed to develop this approach before these cells are used in patients.”
Furthermore, these stem cells also exist in aged human eyes, and can be cultured even from the Corneal limbus (a narrow gap lying between the transparent cornea and surrounding scleral tissue) of 97 year olds.
“Therefore this discovery opens up the possibility of new treatments for the older generations,” the scientists said.
The results are published online in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
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Chen X et al. 2014. Adult Limbal Neurosphere Cells: A Potential Autologous Cell Resource for Retinal Cell Generation. PLoS ONE 9 (10): e108418; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108418
