Histologic Study in Transplantation of Cultured Rabbit Retinal Pigment Epithelium

ABSTRACT

The authors investigated the possibility of transplantion of cultured retinal pigment epithelial cell to normal pigmented rabbit retina. Focal retinal detachment was made in the pigment rabbit retina, and the cultured RPE cells were injected into subretinal space. The neural retina spontaneously rettached withim 6 days. At 4 weeks after tranplantation, eyes were enucleated and examined with light-microscopy and electron-microscopy. The transplanted RPE cells were proliferated with multilayer in electronmicroscopic finding, and the tight-junction was found between proliferative RPE cells. The outer segment and nucleus of photoreceptor cell were well preserved in microscopic finding. As a result, the cultured RPE cells can be sucessfully transplanted to normal pigmented rabbit retina, and photoreceptor cell was not changed after transplantation.