Mouse Stem-Cell Discovery May Lead to Blindness Therapies, Researchers Say
Embryonic stem cells in mice formed themselves into an eyelike structure, a discovery that may lead to treatments for blindness, researchers said.
Scientists coaxed the stem cells by adding proteins and a gene usually expressed in the eye field and retina, according to a report today in the journal Nature. The structure, called an optic cup, then began to form, and soon was complete. In embryos, most of the cup becomes the retina, the light-sensitive membrane lining the inner eyeball.
How eyes develop has been a continuing question for researchers, the authors wrote. It wasn’t clear how this early structure formed, and some scientists thought some outside force was needed to induce it. Today’s study shows that stem cells can create the optic cup on their own. Being able to develop eye precursors may lead to new treatments for degenerative eye diseases, the authors said.
“What we’ve been able to do in this study is resolve a nearly century-old problem in embryology,” Yoshiki Sasai, one of the study’s authors, and a researcher at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, said in a statement. The development, which shows organized tissues can be created from stem cells, “may open new avenues toward applications in regenerative medicine.”
Most forms of untreatable blindness involve photoreceptor cells, those that sense light, wrote Robin Ali, a geneticist at the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London in an accompanying editorial. Mice studies show that transplanting photoreceptor precursor cells can repair an adult retina, Ali wrote. The major challenge for researchers has been to find enough cells for transplant, and today’s discovery may make them more widely available.
To contact the reporter on this story: Elizabeth Lopatto in New York at elopatto@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net.
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