EYEBALL FOR IN VITRO-INDUCED TRANSPLANTATION AND METHOD FOR REGENERATING EYEBALL USING THE SAME

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for regenerating an eyeball having a visual function similar to that of an eyeball of normal development by transplanting the eyeball for transplantation into a living body and to provide the eyeball for transplantation induced from an undifferentiated cell of a vertebrate in vitro.;SOLUTION: An animal cap which is the undifferentiated cell is cut out from a late blastula of Xenopus laevis, treated in an activin solution at a high concentration for 1 h and then precultured for 5 h. The resultant animal cap can then be sandwiched between two untreated animal caps cut out from the late blastula and cultured for 2 days to thereby prepare an explant containing the eyeball. The eyeball is extracted from the resultant explant. The eyeball prepared in vitro is subsequently transplanted into the late tail bud from which the left eye is removed by a surgical technique. The development proceeds in the transplanted site in the manner similar to that of the normal development in the transplanted eyeball. It is confirmed that the differentiation into a lens or a retina extends an optic nerve toward a mesencephalic region of the embryo undergoing the transplantation and the transplanted eyeball has visual functions.;COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO