Abstract
Purpose:
The lacrimal gland, which develops through an epithelial-mesenchymal interaction during organ development, consists of acini, duct, myoepithelial cells and its peripheral tissues. Various types of cells are involved in the lacrimal gland development and regeneration process including tissue repair, however, it is difficult to analyze the origin and the kinetic of these cells. Here, we report a bioengineered lacrimal gland, which used cells derived from different transgenic mice as a model for analysis of the biology of the lacrimal gland development.
Methods:
The care and handling of animals were performed in accordance with NIH guidelines. Protocols were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee. We had successfully demonstrated the bioengineered lacrimal gland germ regeneration by organ germ method (ARVO2013). We regenerated the bioengineered lacrimal gland germ by using epithelial cells from transgenic mice and mesenchymal cells from the normal mice, and transplanted them to adult lacrimal gland defect model mouse. The development of the GFP-labelled bioengineered lacrimal gland, three-dimensional epithelial tissue morphology and the duct connection between the recipient and the bioengineered lacrimal gland were analyzed.
Results:
The bioengineered lacrimal gland using cells from GFP transgenic mice was successfully developed at the transplantation site with duct connection between the bioengineered lacrimal excretory duct and the recipient’s lacrimal excretory duct. The epithelial cells of excretory lacrimal duct of the bioengineered gland, which were derived from DsRed-labelled epithelial cells, were successfully connected with the recipient’s lacrimal excretory duct epithelium histologically. The three dimensional morphological analysis revealed the GFP-labelled epithelial cells developed into branching morphogenesis, and it also revealed that myoepithelial cells were derived from epithelial cells during organ development.
Conclusions:
We demonstrated that bioengineered lacrimal gland regeneration using cells derived from transgenic mice as a useful model to analyze the morphology and the developmental biology of the lacrimal gland. This model is expected to be applied for the analysis to clarify the biology of the lacrimal gland regeneration.
Keywords: 497 development •
687 regeneration •
576 lacrimal gland