Abstract
Purpose: :
It has recently been reported that N-cadherin plays an important role in maintaining the stem-cell properties of corneal epithelial cells. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of N-cadherin in the maintenance of the properties in conjunctival epithelial cells.
Methods: :
After cell dissociation by the consecutive use of Dispase and trypsin, conjunctival epithelial cells were magnetically sorted into N-cadherin positive cells and negative cells. For those cells, colony forming ability and expression analysis against various types of undifferentiated and differentiated markers was conducted.
Results: :
N-cadherin was mainly expressed in the basal layer of conjunctival epithelial cells. N-cadherin-positive conjunctival epithelial cells had higher colony-forming ability compared with the N-cadherin-negative cells. N-cadherin-positive cells had a relatively large cell size and expressed cytokeratin 13, but not cytokeratin 4. On the other hand, N-cadherin-negative cells had a relatively small cell size and expressed both cytokeratin 13 and cytokeratin 4. N-cadherin-positive cells expressed a significantly high level of Cytokeratin 15 and p63, which are known to be undifferentiated markers.
Conclusions: :
Considering the high colony-forming ability and high expression of the undifferentiated markers, N-cadherin-positive conjunctival epithelial cells seem to have an undifferentiated status, strongly suggesting that these cells are conjunctival epithelial stem cells.