This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Using stem cells, researchers create RPE cells with potential for transplantation
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Researchers have isolated putative retinal pigment epithelium cells from a line of human embryonic stem cells, according to a study in the journal Cloning and Stem Cells. Because the cell differentiation process did not require co-culturing with animal cells or animal factors, zoonosis-free cells were created, which would be suitable for transplanting into patients, the study authors said.
Irina Klimanskaya and colleagues at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology Inc., at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University School of Medicine and at the University of Chicago compared several lines of newly differentiated retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells to human fetal RPE cells using a technique called transcriptomics.
Several lines of human embryonic stem cells (HES cells) were differentiated into putative RPE cells capable of phagocytosis, the authors said. Additionally, the derived RPE cells could transdifferentiate into cells with neuronal lineage and, with multiple passages, redifferentiate into cells similar to RPE cells, according to the study.
The RPE cells derived from the HES cells were also shown through gene expression profiling to be more similar to primary RPE cells than other existing RPE cell lines, the authors noted.
“With the further development of therapeutic cloning, … RPE lines could be generated to overcome the problem of immune rejection and could be one of the nearest-term applications of stem cell technology,” the authors said.
“A significant next step will be to test the ability of these cells to treat [age-related macular degeneration] and other retinal degenerative diseases in both humans and animal models,” they said.