Successful cotransplantation of intact sheets of fetal retina with retinal pigment epithelium.
OBJECTIVE
Many retinal diseases, such as macular degeneration, affect both retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and photoreceptors. Therefore, retinal repair may require transplantation of both tissues together as a cograft.


METHODS
As recipients of retina-RPE cografts, 7- to 10-week-old albino Royal College of Surgeons rats that lose their photoreceptors because of a pigment epithelium defect were used. Freshly harvested intact sheets of RPE with neural retina from pigmented normal rat fetuses were gel embedded for protection and transplanted into the subretinal space.


RESULTS
After 6 to 7 weeks, with the support of the cografted RPE sheet, transplanted photoreceptors developed fully in organized parallel layers in the subretinal space. Immunohistochemistry for rhodopsin, rod alpha-transducin, and S-antigen and peanut agglutinin labeling for cone interphotoreceptor matrix domains suggested that the photoreceptors in the graft were capable of normal function.


CONCLUSIONS
Freshly harvested intact sheets of fetal RPE and retina, transplanted together into the subretinal space, can develop a normal morphology. Such transplants have the potential to benefit retinal diseases with dysfunctional RPE and photoreceptors.
Aramant
R B
RB
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Louisville, School of Medicine, Kentucky 40202, USA.
Seiler
M J
MJ
Ball
S L
SL
D000818:Animals; D019393:Arrestin / Q000378:metabolism; D002470:Cell Survival; D017690:Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000378:metabolism; D016332:Fetal Tissue Transplantation; D006085:Graft Survival; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D020419:Photoreceptor Cells, Vertebrate / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D010857:Pigment Epithelium of Eye / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology / Q000637:transplantation*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D011922:Rats, Mutant Strains; D012160:Retina / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology / Q000637:transplantation*; D012162:Retinal Degeneration / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D012243:Rhodopsin / Q000378:metabolism; D015293:Transducin / Q000378:metabolism
D019393:Arrestin; D012243:Rhodopsin; D015293:Transducin