Advanced Cell Technology reported today the first generation of human retinal cells in the laboratory from human embryonic stem cells.
Some of these retinal tissues such as Retinal Pigment Epithelium (RPE) may provide a novel therapeutic strategy for such devastating diseases as macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and other retinal degenerative diseases.
The research, which will appear in the Fall issue of the peer-reviewed journal Cloning and Stem Cells, by ACT and its collaborators at Wake Forest University and the University of Chicago, describes for the first time the isolation and characterization of putative RPE cells from human embryonic stem cells, as well as the first application of transcriptomics (gene expression profiling) to comparatively assess stem-cell derivatives vs. their in vivo counterparts.
"Millions of patients with retinal degeneration might conceivably benefit from these cells in the future," said Robert Lanza, Medical Director at ACT, and senior author of the study. "An important next step will be to test the ability of these cells to restore visual function in both humans and animal models. With therapeutic cloning, or the creation of banks of stem cells generated using parthenogenesis (perhaps as few as 40-400 lines), a limitless supply of immune-matched cells could be generated for most of the population."
This study describes for the first time, a differentiation system that does not require co-culture with animal cells or products, thus allowing the production of pathogen-free RPE cells suitable for transplantation into patients. "We differentiated several human embryonic stem cell lines into RPE," said Irina Klimanskaya, Senior Scientist at ACT, and first author of the study. "These cells expressed RPE-specific molecular markers and were capable of phagocytosis, an important RPE function. Gene expression profiling further confirmed their similarity to RPE from natural sources."