Abstract
Purpose :
Retinal progenitor cell (RPC) transplantation is a promising method of therapy for some retinal diseases by repairing the degenerated retina. This study established RPCs from adult mouse neural retina with a chemically defined medium, the cells can culture in vitro for long time.
Methods :
The cells were isolated from adult mouse neural retinal tissues and digested with 2% dispase then plated onto 2% Matrigel-coated cell culture dishes with chemical defined medium. Cells were analyzed by by various methods, including ICC, RT-PCR, western blot, flow cytometry and RNA-seq to study the characteristics in detail.
Results :
These cells express many RPC markers such as PAX6, SIX3, NESTIN and SOX2, and some surface markers of RPC such as CD24, CD47 and CD73. The cells can maintain the proliferation potency during the propagation without differentiation. RNA-seq results indicated that the cells are retinal progenitor cells and showed many different aspects when compared with the mature retinal tissues.
Conclusions :
Our results showed that the chemically defined medium culture system can establish and amplify RPCs from adult retinal tissues, which provides a very promising technical platform for future cellular therapy in eye diseases.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.