Abstract
Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) dysfunctionis implicated in various blinding diseases including Age-related Macular degeneration (ARMD) and Stargardt’s disease. RPE transplantation is currently under investigation as a potential therapy for degenerative and/or hereditary retinal diseases. As RPE cells are polar with specific apical and basal characteristics, proper orientation of the grafted cells is expected to have an impact on the success of the transplant and rapid re-establishment of structural integrity of the host retina. Reasonable success has been achieved by randomly injecting RPE cell suspensions in the rescue of degenerating photoreceptors in Royal College of Surgeons rats. These studies have shown the transplanted cells to be functional evaluated by outer segment phagocytosis and photoreceptor transduction (1–5). But in these studies, no consideration was given to the fact that these dissociated cells settled randomly in the host retina often wandering in the subretinal space. Morever, the structural and functional polarity of RPE has also been ignored. As a possible treatment for conditions such as in ARMD, where degeneration of the retina is localized, use of correctly oriented, targeted RPE implants is the ideal method by which diseased retina can be restored to health. There have been other reports describing the use of substrates for RPE transplants (6–11), but none of the substrates were consistently proven effective. Some of the disadvantages of previous substrates include thickness of the substrate, poor degradability, rigidity causing retinal damage and poor permeability. Biodegradable polymers have been used as temporary scaffolds for hepatocyte (12–15)(Cima), fibroblast (Saltzman), chondrocyte (freed) and osteoblast (Ishaug) cultures. In this study, biodegradable polymer sheets as a matrix for RPE grafts have been employed. Polymers such as polyglycolic and polylactic acid are selected due to properties that include biodegradability, maleability and permeability. We have evaluated the polymer matrices as substrates for RPE cell culture, the technique for implanting such polymer/RPE cell complexes in the subretinal space and their subsequent inteactions with the adjacent retina and Bruch’s membrane.
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Lahiri-Munir, D., Lu, L., Garcia, C.A., Mikos, A., Aguilar, E. (1997). Mechanical Aspects of Retinal Pigment Epithelial Transplantation. In: LaVail, M.M., Hollyfield, J.G., Anderson, R.E. (eds) Degenerative Retinal Diseases. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5933-7_38
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5933-7_38
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