Purpose:
To investigate the effect of subretinal injection of allogeneic human-derived bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell population (hBM-MSCs) on retinal functions. measured electroretinographically, and retinal structure of Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rats.
Methods:
hBM-MSCs (CD73+; CD90+, CD105+, CD45-) from healthy human donors were expanded ex-vivo up to for four passages. 0.25 Million cells in 5µl were transplanted into the sub-retinal space of one eye each of 54 4 weeks old RCS rats. Ten RCS rats were injected subretinally with saline as control. The ERG responses of both eyes of all the animals was tested before the injections and afterwards for ten weeks. Animals were dark-adapted for minimum of six hours prior to the ERG measurements. Scotopic and photopic ERGs were recorded from both eyes simultaneously using corneal golden wire loops . The eyes were then enucleated and processed for histology.
Results:
Four weeks after injection (figure 1), the b-wave amplitude responses of the scotopic and photopic ERG showed 74% deterioration from baseline compared to 94% deterioration (p<0.05) in the control groups (not injected eyes and saline injected eyes). These significant differences (p<0.05) were found up to the tenth week.
Conclusions:
In this study we have shown for the first time that transplanting hBM-MSCs as a thin homogenous sub-retinal layer slows significantly the retinal deterioration rate as measured by ERG in RCS rats up to ten weeks. Subretinal injection of autologous hBM-MSCs may possibly be a therapeutic modality in patients with retinal degeneration.
Keywords: retina • transplantation • retinal degenerations: hereditary