Culture of Iris Pigment Epithelial Cells on Expanded-Polytetrafluroethylene (ePTFE) Substrates for the Treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

摘要

Introduction:Transplantation of an intact differentiated retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell layer may provide a means to treat Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). However, harvesting RPE cells can be a technically complicated procedure. Our current work aimed to prepare intact differentiated iris pigment epithelial (IPE) cell layers, which are easy to obtain and have the same embryonic origin and similar properties as RPE cells, on ePTFE substrates for transplantation purposes to rescue deteriorated photoreceptors in AMD.