The progress of cell-replacement therapy for age-related macular degeneration / 中华眼底病杂志

ABSTRACT

Based on the pathogenic mechanisms of age-related macular degeneration (AMD),tremendous preclinical and clinical trials have demonstrated that cell transplantation which aim to replace impaired retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) with healthy RPE cells is a promising approach to treat AMD.So far,choices of cell sources mainly are autologous RPE,iris pigment epithelium,fetal RPE,human embryonic stem cell-derived RPE and human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived RPE,and some of them are undergoing clinical researches.Grafting manners in cell-based therapies are various including RPE sheet or RPE-choroid complex transplantation,RPE cell suspension injection,and RPE sheet transplantation with scaffolds.This review is limited to cell-based therapies for RPE that damaged first in the progress of AMD and focus on recent advances in cell sources,transplantation methods,preclinical and clinical trials,and the obstacles that must be overcome.