Stem cells can treat cloudy cornea: Study

A team of researchers at the University of Cincinnati have successfully treated laboratory mice with unusually thin, cloudy corneas giving hope that the impact could be replicated in humans as well.

No rejection for UMSCs
For the purpose of the study, researchers fed the mice with a diet that lacked a specific protein that is vital for the creation and preservation of a transparent cornea.

Once the vision was impaired, the human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (UMSCs) that have the characteristic to mutate in a wide range of adult cell types, were introduced in the mouse cornea.

The study established that the UMSCs lived on in the cornea for three months with negligible signs of elimination or rejection. In fact, these cells took on the properties of keratocytes, the standard corneal cells.

The results of the study revealed that after the transplant of the UMSCs in the cornea of the mice, the thickness and lucidity of the animals' corneas improved appreciably.

The cornea is the front portion of the eye and is transparent. It essentially protects the fragile structure of the eye beneath it and helps focus light.

Cloudy cornea is the loss of transparency in cornea, a condition caused by injury or certain diseases. Cloudy cornea impairs vision.

UMSCs available abundantly
Lead researcher Winston Whei-Yang Kao, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Cincinnati noted that, globally, there is an acute shortage of appropriate corneas for transplantation.

"Corneal transplantation is currently the only true cure for restoration of eyesight that may have been lost due to corneal scarring caused by infection, mechanical and chemical wounds and congenital defects of genetic mutations," said Kao.

Kao said that unlike donated corneas, UMSCs were in abundant supply. Furthermore, these cells were easy to segregate from the umbilical cord and such cells can be grown efficiently in culture and stored, without difficulty, in liquid nitrogen.

In light of these facts, the findings of the study become all the more critical.

"These findings have the potential to create new and better treatments and an improved quality of life for patients with vision loss due to corneal injury," maintained Kao.

Dr Francisco Arnalich, an expert in the field who has carried out comparable work in rabbits cautioned, "There is still a long way to go from saying that they achieved clear corneas. Moreover they just state that they improved transparency, not that they reach normal transparency.”

“To say that this could be a substitute of corneal grafting," averred Arnalich.

The findings of the study have been presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology.