Successful primary culture and autologous transplantation of corneal limbal epithelial cells from minimal biopsy for unilateral severe ocular surface disease.
BACKGROUND
Patients with severe unilateral ocular surface disease require reconstruction of the damaged ocular surface. We succeeded in culturing primary corneal limbal epithelial cells taken from minimal biopsy and, once grown, transplanting them on denuded amniotic membrane (AM).


METHODS
Autologous corneal limbal epithelial cells from a 3 mm(2) biopsy of the uninjured eye were grown for 3 weeks on a denuded AM carrier. The resultant sheet was then transplanted onto the unilateral severely chemically injured eye.


RESULTS
Minimal biopsy showed the autologous cultivated corneal epithelial cells to have 4-5 layers of sufficient stratification and to be well differentiated. At 19 months post-transplantation, the ocular surface epithelium was stable and there were no epithelial defects.


CONCLUSIONS
We document that it is possible to produce sufficiently stratified, well differentiated, autologous cultivated corneal limbal epithelium on AM from a minimal biopsy of the donor eye and to transplant it onto the injured eye.
Nakamura
Takahiro
T
Department of Ophthalmology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan. tnakamur@ophth.kpu-m.ac.jp
Inatomi
Tsutomu
T
Sotozono
Chie
C
Koizumi
Noriko
N
Kinoshita
Shigeru
S
D000328:Adult; D000650:Amnion; D002057:Burns, Chemical / Q000601:surgery; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D018920:Coculture Techniques; D003316:Corneal Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000637:transplantation*; D019573:Epithelium, Corneal / Q000166:cytology / Q000637:transplantation; D005126:Eye Burns / Q000139:chemically induced; D006801:Humans; D016850:Limbus Corneae / Q000166:cytology*; D008297:Male; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous