Progresses and issues of corneal tissue engineering with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells / 中华实验眼科杂志

ABSTRACT

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) are a group of pluripotential non-hematopoietic somatic stem cells niched in bone marrow.With the characteristics of stable genetic traits,pluripotential in differentiation,easy to isolate from source tissue,and fast to proliferate when cultured in vitro,BMSCs are currently attracting extensive research interests,and considered to be one of the most promising candidates in corneal tissue engineering.At present,many research groups,domestic and abroad,have reported that BMSCs can not only differentiate into corneal limbal stem cells,corneal epithelial cells,and corneal endothelial cells,but also play an important role in ocular surface repair.However,the successful application of BMSCs in cornea usually depends on the correct selection of supporting materials or scaffold,such as xenogeneic corneal stroma and amniotic membrane.Other unsolved problems in BMSCs-related corneal tissue engineering include the molecular biologic mechanism underlying the directional differentiation from BMSCs to corneal cells,the standards to identify BMSCs from differentiated corneal cells,the optimal scaffold materials and the potential tumorigenicity with grafting of transformed or undifferentiated BMSCs.This paper reviewed the progresses and issues of corneal tissue engineering with BMSCs.