RESUMO
Aim To study the differentiation of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells ( HM-SCs) into retinal cells in vitro. Methods HMSCs were isolated from human bone marrow after Ficoll den-sity gradient centrifugation. The adherent cells after at least 5 passages were used for study. Immunopheno-type of the cells was analysed by flow cytometer, and cellular differentiation was identified by immunofluores-cence labeling technique. Results The target cells derived from human bone marrow adhered to the plate with fibroblastic-like morphology, whose surface mark-ers were similar to mesenchymal stem cells. Major cells were positive for CD90 , CD44 , CD147 , while they were all negative for CD34, CD45, HLA-DR. In the differentiation study, HMSCs cultured in induced me-dium can differentiate into nestin ( neural stem cell ) -positive cell, GFAP ( glial fibrillary acidic protein ) -positive glial cells and retina-specific neurons express-ing Rhodopsin with CD90 ( mesenchymal stem cells )-negative. Conclusion HMSCs have the ability to dif-ferentiate into retinal neural cells in vitro.