Journal
CELL TRANSPLANTATION
Volume 14, Issue 8, Pages 565-571Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.3727/000000005783982783
Keywords
cornea; wound healing; primary epithelial cells; transfer; contact lens
Funding
- NATIONAL EYE INSTITUTE [P30EY008126, K08EY013592, R01EY013451] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NEI NIH HHS [EY 13451, P30 EY 08126, EY 13592] Funding Source: Medline
- NHLBI NIH HHS [HL 07751] Funding Source: Medline
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Persistent corneal wounds result from numerous eye disorders, and to date, available treatments often fail to accelerate reepithelialization, the key initial step in wound healing. To speed reepithelialization, we explored a cell-transfer transplant method utilizing polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) contact lenses to deliver epithelial cells derived from limbal explants directly within a corneal wound. Human primary epithelial cells and an immortalized corneal epithelial cell line (HCE-SV40) grew well on PDMS contact lenses and their morphology and growth rates where similar to cells grown on tissue culture polystyrene. To initially study cell transfer from PDMS, HCE-SV40 cells were seeded onto PDMS with or without micropatterned posts. After a day in culture, HCE-SV40 cells attached to the unpatterned PDMS uniformly, whereas on micropatterned PDMS they appeared to attach primarily between posts. The cell-covered PDMS contacts were then placed cell-side down onto tissue culture plastic and, after 1, 2, or 3 days, the PDMS contact was removed and the transferred cells were trypsinized and counted. Micropatterned PDMS contact lenses with 100-mu m-diameter posts and a post height of 40 gm transferred three times as many cells as unpatterned PDMS. Cell transfer to a wounded cornea was tested in a pig cornea organ culture model de-epithelialized by alkali treatment. Post micropatterned PDMS contact lenses were seeded with labeled HCE-SV40 cells at a density 50,000 cells/cm(2) and applied to the wounded pig corneas. After 24, 48, or 96 h of application, PDMS contact lenses were removed, corneas fixed with formaldehyde, and sectioned. After 48 h, epithelial cells transferred from post micropatterned contact lenses to provide 35% epithelial coverage of denuded pig corneas; after 96 h coverage was 65%. We conclude that cell transfer from epithelial-coated PDMS contact lenses micropatterned with posts provides a promising approach to reepithelialize corneal surfaces.
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