title: The efficient fabrication of corneal epithelial cell sheets by controlling oxygen concentration.
abstract: We have developed a novel method to accelerate the fabrication of epithelial cell sheets by controlling oxygen concentration. Rabbit limbal epithelial cells were proliferated efficiently under hypoxia (2% O2) in comparison to those proliferated under normoxia (20% O2), but were not stratified completely under 2% O2. In contrast, corneal limbal epithelial cells cultured under hypoxia were stratified by re-oxygenation after reaching confluence. Histological and immunofluorescence analyses and colony-forming assays showed that it was possible to fabricate the corneal epithelial cell sheets efficiently by controlling the oxygen concentration. These results indicate that this novel method can be a cost-effective tool for fabricating stratified epithelial cell sheets for corneal regenerative medicine.
authors.affiliation: Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd., 2520 Hatoyama, Saitama 350-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryota
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nakajima
authors.forename: Shizu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takeda
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003316:Corneal Diseases / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D019573:Epithelium, Corneal / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D000860:Hypoxia / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D010100:Oxygen / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: cell culture process; cell sheet; epithelial cell; hypoxia; oxygen concentration; stratified epithelium