Abstract
Purpose :
One of the complications of phacoemulsification is corneal endothelial cell (CEC) loss. We previously introduced a reproducible model of CEC injury using a phaco probe in the porcine model of phacoemulsification. We evaluated the effect of corneal-limbal derived mesenchymal stromal/stem cell (CL-MSC) secretome on the CEC loss using our injury model.
Methods :
CL-MSCs were isolated via enzymatic digestion from healthy cadaver corneas. Passage 4 to 6 were used for the experiment. The secretome was collected in a serum free MEM-alpha media for 48 hours from confluent cells. All experiments were repeated with at least five different donors. Fresh pig eyes underwent 30 seconds of exposure to the phaco probe inside the anterior chamber with 50% power (along with continuous irrigation with BSS). Afterwards, the anterior chamber was formed with either PBS, CL-MSC secretome or unconditioned media and incubated at 37 degrees for 4 hours. At the end, endothelial cell viability was evaluated using trypan blue and alizarin red staining and analyzed with Image J software.
Results :
There was 8.62% ± 1.41 CEC loss after 4-hours incubation with PBS. Incubation with CL-MSC secretome significantly reduced endothelial cells loss (1.12% ± 1.82) compared to unconditioned media (6.82% ± 3.42) (P<0.001).
Conclusions :
CL-MSC secretome may provide a novel strategy to prevent CEC loss after phacoemulsification. In vivo studies are still necessary to determine its true therapeutic potential.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.