Insight into induced pluripotent stem cells in retinal diseases / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:Retinal diseases are caused by damage or apoptosis of the retinal cel s and lack of ideal treatment. Induced pluripotent stem cel s have self-renewal ability and differentiation potential. A new potential source from which to produce stem cel s as a therapeutic platform for the treatment of retinal diseases and avoid ethics issues is the research focus currently. OBJECTIVE:To review recent advancement of induced pluripotent stem cel s and the potential utility for retinal diseases. METHODS:The first author searched related articles published from 2006 to 2011 by computer retrieval in PubMed database using the keywords of“induced pluripotent stem cel s, retinal, photoreceptor, retinal pigment epithelium, retinal ganglion cel”in English. Final y, total y 42 papers were involved. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Induced pluripotent stem cel s can be induced to differentiate into retinal cel s which have a possibility to be used as donor cel s for transplantation therapies. Patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cel s can be used as disease models for mechanistic studies and drug screening. It is a promising therapy for retinal degenerative diseases. However, some problems stil remain, such as risk of teratoma formation and low efficiency of somatic cel s to be successful y induced into induced pluripotent stem cel s. It stil requires further more studies.