Stem Cell Therapies for Reversing Vision Loss

Higuchi A 1 , Kumar SS 2 , Benelli G 3 , Alarfaj AA 4 , Munusamy MA 4 , Umezawa A 5 Show all authors , Murugan K 6

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National Central University, No. 300, Jhongda Road, Jhongli, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan; Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; Department of Reproduction, National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, 2-10-1 Okura, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 157-8535, Japan; Nano Medical Engineering Laboratory, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan. Electronic address: higuchi@ncu.edu.tw
  • 2 Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 3 Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, 56124 Pisa, Italy; The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34, 56025 Pontedera, Pisa, Italy
  • 4 Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
  • 5 Department of Reproduction, National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, 2-10-1 Okura, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 157-8535, Japan
  • 6 Division of Entomology, Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, 641046, India; Thiruvalluvar University, Serkkadu, Vellore 632115, Tamil Nadu, India
Trends Biotechnol, 2017 11;35(11):1102-1117.
PMID: 28751147 DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.06.016

Abstract

Current clinical trials that evaluate human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-based therapies predominantly target treating macular degeneration of the eyes because the eye is an isolated tissue that is naturally weakly immunogenic. Here, we discuss current bioengineering approaches and biomaterial usage in combination with stem cell therapy for macular degeneration disease treatment. Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) differentiated from hPSCs is typically used in most clinical trials for treating patients, whereas bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMNCs) or mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are intravitreally transplanted, undifferentiated, into patient eyes. We also discuss reported negative effects of stem cell therapy, such as patients becoming blind following transplantation of adipose-derived stem cells, which are increasingly used by 'stem-cell clinics'.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

MeSH terms
Similar publications