Abstract
Presentation Description :
Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) are being explored as alternative stem cell sources to generate various cell types of the body. Recent reports have demonstrated the possibility of generating complex, three dimensional tissues in vitro. Here, we report a method of generating three dimensional minicorneal organoids from human PSCs. The eye field primordial (EFP) clusters that emerged from differentiating PSCs developed into whole eye ball-like, self-organized, three dimensional, miniature structures consisting of retinal primordia (RP), corneal primordia (CP), other inner adnexal structures and lid-like surface lining, in a step-wise maturation process within 15 weeks. These organoids recapitulate the early developmental events in vitro and displayed similar anatomical features and marker expression profiles as that of adult tissues. Such PSC derived corneal organoids can serve as alternate, but unlimited source of stem cells for engineering complex corneal epithelial cell sheets meant for drug screening, disease modeling and regenerative applications.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.