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Recent Advances in Biosynthetic Corneal Substitutes

  • Cornea (P Hamrah and T Yamaguchi, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Regeneration of the corneal epithelium and endothelium has been achieved, but regeneration of the corneal stroma has not, because it has several remarkable properties, including high tensile strength, thrust resistance, and high transparency. We introduce several biosynthetic approaches to creating stromal substitutes closely resembling the native human corneal stroma are currently being studied.

Recent Findings

Currently, there are five approaches to regenerate corneal stroma: (1) decellularization, (2) the use of human recombinant collagen (HRC), (3) optical clarification (and lamination), (4) cell-based regeneration, and (5) organoid generation with induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

Summary

Immediate next steps for this area of research include clinical trials of decellularized stromal scaffolds created from porcine corneas or RHC. While these methods have both advantages and disadvantages, their refinement and clinical use, as well as the use of other methods, promise to lead to the continuing development of new approaches.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan

    Shunji Yokokura

  2. RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, Kobe, Japan

    Yuji Tanaka

Authors
  1. Shunji Yokokura
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  2. Yuji Tanaka
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shunji Yokokura.

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Conflict of Interest

Shunji Yokokura and Yuji Tanaka declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article contains studies with human and animals. These studies followed the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and all study protocols were approved by the Institutional Ethics Committees of Tohoku University hospital

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Cornea

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Yokokura, S., Tanaka, Y. Recent Advances in Biosynthetic Corneal Substitutes. Curr Ophthalmol Rep 6, 200–205 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40135-018-0180-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40135-018-0180-5

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