臨床応用を目指した角膜内皮再生医療の開発

概要

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This review describes our recent attempts to develop new therapeutic modalities for corneal endothelial diseases using animal models, especially a monkey model in which a proliferative ability of corneal endothelial cells is severely limited similar to humans. First, we describe our attempt to develop new surgical treatments for advanced corneal endothelial dysfunction using transplantation of cultivated endothelial cells. The corneal endothelial cell transplantation can be achieved by two different approaches; one is by transplantation of a corneal endothelial cell sheet cultivated on a type I collagen carrier and another is by transplantation of a corneal endothelial cell sheet cultivated on a human lamellar graft prepared by a similar procedure used in DSAEK surgery. Recently, we reported that the selective Rho-kinase (ROCK) inhibitor, Y-27632, promotes cell adhesion and proliferation and inhibits the apoptosis of primate corneal endothelial cells in culture. Based on these new findings, we are currently developing new surgical and non-surgical treatment modalities for corneal endothelial diseases using the ROCK inhibitor.