Method of Inducing and Differentiating Human Skin-Derived Precursors to Differentiate into Corneal Endothelial-like Cells

Abstract

The present invention discloses a method of inducing and differentiating human skin-derived precursors into corneal endothelial-like cells. The present invention utilizes human skin-derived precursors to induce corneal endothelial-like cells that are theoretically close to normal human corneal endothelial cells successfully by co-culturing with B4G12 corneal endothelial cells. Furthermore, the obtained corneal endothelial-like cells are applied to a corneal endothelial decompensation animal model, and corneal endothelium of the animal is successfully repaired, which has an important clinical application prospect.

Claims

1. A method of inducing and differentiating human skin-derived precursors into corneal endothelial-like cells, characterized by comprising: co-culturing the human skin-derived precursors with human corneal endothelial cells; and inducing the human skin-derived precursors to differentiate into corneal endothelial-like cells.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the human corneal endothelial cells are B4G12 cell lines.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein a manner of co-culturing the human skin-derived precursor cells with human corneal endothelial cells is a non-contact co-culturing manner adopting transwell chamber.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein a manner of co-culturing of human skin-derived precursor cells with human corneal endothelial cells is a non-contact co-culturing manner adopting transwell chamber.

5. The method according to claim 1, characterized by comprising the following steps: step 1: culturing of human skin-derived precursors (SKPs); step 2: culturing of corneal endothelial cells B4G12, and step 3: induction of corneal endothelial-like cells; wherein the step 1 further comprises: irrigating and disinfecting a skin tissue with penicillin streptomycin, cutting the skin tissue into 1 mm*2 mm tissue blocks, digesting the tissue blocks with 4 C. dispase enzyme for 12-24 hours, removing cuticle to obtain dermis; digesting the dermis with collagenase for 2-3 hours, neutralizing with fetal calf serum containing DMEM, dissociating cells and filtering the dissociated cells by a cell strainer, inoculating the filtered cells in a culture flask, adding SKPs culture, culturing the cells in 5% CO.sub.2 incubator at 37 C. until formation of spherical suspended SKPs, passaging and obtaining SKPs for inducing differentiation; and the step 2 further comprises: taking a cryopreserved tube containing B4G12 cells from ultra-low temperature freezer, moving the tube rapidly to a water bath under 37 C. to dissolve ice in the tube, transferring a suspension solution in the cryopreserved tube to a 15 mL centrifuged tube, adding 1 mL of B4G12 cell culture medium, centrifuging the solution at 1000 r/min for 5 minutes and removing the supernatant, adding 3 mL B4G12 cell culture medium again to make re-suspended cells precipitate, finally adding the cells into a culture bottle coated with 10 ug/m laminin and 10 mg/mL chondroitin sulfate, culturing the cells under normal condition and changing the solution every other day.

6. The method according to claim 2, characterized by comprising the following steps: step 1: culturing of human skin-derived precursors (SKPs); step 2: culturing of corneal endothelial cells B4G12, and step 3: induction of corneal endothelial-like cells; wherein the step 1 further comprises: irrigating and disinfecting a skin tissue with penicillin streptomycin, cutting the skin tissue into 1 mm*2 mm tissue blocks, digesting the tissue blocks with 4 C. dispase enzyme for 12-24 hours, removing cuticle to obtain dermis; digesting the dermis with collagenase for 2-3 hours, neutralizing with fetal calf serum containing DMEM, dissociating cells and filtering the dissociated cells by a cell strainer, inoculating the filtered cells in a culture flask, adding SKPs culture, culturing the cells in 5% CO.sub.2 incubator at 37 C. until formation of spherical suspended SKPs, passaging and obtaining SKPs for inducing differentiation; and the step 2 further comprises: taking a cryopreserved tube containing B4G12 cells from ultra-low temperature freezer, moving the tube rapidly to a water bath under 37 C. to dissolve ice in the tube, transferring a suspension solution in the cryopreserved tube to a 15 mL centrifuged tube, adding 1 mL of B4G12 cell culture medium, centrifuging the solution at 1000 r/min for 5 minutes and removing the supernatant, adding 3 mL B4G12 cell culture medium again to make re-suspended cells precipitate, finally adding the cells into a culture bottle coated with 10 ug/m laminin and 10 mg/mL chondroitin sulfate, culturing the cells under normal condition and changing the solution every other day.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein co-culturing the human skin-derived precursors with human corneal endothelial cells further comprises: inoculating the human corneal endothelial cells or B4G12 cells in a transwell chamber (upper chamber); inoculating SKPs in a culture plate (lower chamber); culture medium is prepared by adding 10 ng/mL bFGF to human endothelial cells serum free medium HE-SFM.

8. The method according to claim 2, wherein co-culturing the human skin-derived precursors with human corneal endothelial cells further comprises: inoculating human corneal endothelial cells or B4G12 cells in a transwell chamber (upper chamber); inoculating SKPs in a culture plate (lower chamber); culture medium is prepared by adding 10 ng/mL bFGF to human endothelial cells serum free medium HE-SFM.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein co-culturing the human skin-derived precursors with human corneal endothelial cells further comprises: coating a culture plate with 10 ug/ml laminin and 10 mg/ml chondroitin sulfate and irrigating with pbs, digesting SKPs with 0.05% pancreatic enzyme 0.02% EDTA, inoculating the digested SKPs in the culture plate, co-culturing SKPs and B4G12 using transwell chamber in manner of non-contact, digesting corneal endothelial-like cells obtained by induction every 7-10 days with pancreatic enzyme-EDTA and passaging.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein co-culturing the human skin-derived precursors with human corneal endothelial cells further comprises: coating a culture plate with 10 ug/ml laminin and 10 mg/ml chondroitin sulfate and irrigating with pbs, digesting SKPs with 0.05% pancreatic enzyme 0.02% EDTA, inoculating the digested SKPs in the culture plate, co-culturing SKPs and B4G12 using transwell chamber in manner of non-contact, digesting corneal endothelial-like cells obtained by induction every 7-10 days with pancreatic enzyme-EDTA and passaging.

11. Corneal endothelial-like cells obtained by the method according to claim 1.

12. The corneal endothelial-like cells according to claim 11, wherein the cells are polygonal shape, forming tightly connected single mosaic arrangement, and markers for expressing corneal endothelium Na+/K+ATPase and ZO-1 are all increased compared to corneal endothelial markers Na+/K+ATPase, ZO-1, N-cadherin, CA2, Col4a2 and Col8a2 of SKPs.

13. An application of the corneal endothelial-like cells according to claim 11 in preparation of corneal transplantation, wherein the corneal endothelial-like cells are applied as seed cells.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0038] FIG. 1 shows Skin-derived Precursors (SKPs) under an optical microscope: SKPs start forming from 7 days on, spheroidal, and proliferating after 2-3 weeks, maintaining their properties after cell passage.

[0039] FIG. 2 shows corneal endothelial-like cells induced and differentiated by SKPs under an optical microscope. A: part of the cells start to be polygonal after 4 days of induction; B: majority of the cells are polygonal after 8 days, tightly connected single Mosaic arrangement are formed with each other; C and D: induced cell express markers for corneal endothelium, namely Na+/K+ATPase and ZO-1.

[0040] FIG. 3 shows the detection results of corneal endothelial-like cells by RT-PCR, showing different degrees of enhanced expression of markers in corneal endothelial-like cells compared to that of SKPs.

[0041] FIG. 4 shows the detection results of corneal endothelial-like cells by Western blotting, showing an enhanced expression of Na+/K+ATPase and ZO-1 in corneal endothelial-like cells compared with SKPs.

[0042] FIG. 5 shows the cell passage culturing of corneal endothelial-like cells under an optical microscope: cells are still single-layer polygonal.

[0043] FIG. 6 shows the experimental result picture of rabbit corneal endothelial transplantation: corneal transparency is increased gradually after transplantation and cornea is almost completely transparent at 7 days after transplantation.

[0044] FIG. 7 shows a frozen section of dead cornea and a picture detected by fluorescence microscope after corneal turning transparent and after corneal endothelial transplantation. Corneal posterior surface in the corneal endothelial-like cells is coated with single layer of Dil-stain. A shows the cornea frozen section and B shows the picture detected by fluorescence microscope.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiment 1 Induction and Differentiation of Human Skin-Derived Precursors into Corneal Endothelial-Like Cells

[0045] Step 1: culturing of human Skin-derived Precursors (SKPs) comprises:

[0046] irrigating and disinfecting a skin tissue with penicillin streptomycin, cutting the skin tissue into 1 mm*2 mm tissue block, digesting the tissue with 4 C. dispase enzyme for 12-24 hours, removing cuticle to obtain dermis; digesting the dermis with collagenase for 2-3 hours, neutralizing with fetal calf serum containing DMEM, issociating cells and filtering the dissociated cells by a cell strainer, inoculating the filtered cells in a culture flask, adding SKPs culture, culturing the cells in 5% CO.sub.2 incubator at 37 C. Spherical suspended SKPs are formed after about 2-3 weeks, and the cells after 2-4 generations are used for induction. The culturing observation of SKPs is shown in FIG. 1.

[0047] The culture solution for SKPs is basal culture medium of DMEM/F12=3:1, adding 2% B27, 40 ng/ml bFGF, 20 ng/ml EGF and 1% double resistant lividans.

[0048] Step 2: culturing of corneal endothelial cells B4G12 comprises:

[0049] taking a cryopreserved tube containing B4G12 cells from ultra-low temperature freezer, moving the tube rapidly to a water bath under 37 C. to dissolve the ice in the tube, transferring a suspension solution of the cryopreserved tube to a 15 mL of centrifuged tube, adding 1 mL of B4G12 cell culture medium, centrifuging the solution at 1000 r/min for 5 minutes and removing the supernatant, adding 3 mL of B4G12 culture medium again to make the re-suspended cells precipitate, finally adding the cells into a culture bottle coated with 10 ug/m laminin and 10 mg/mL chondroitin sulfate, culturing the cells under normal condition and changing the solution every other day.

[0050] The culture medium for B4G12 is prepared with human endothelial cells serum free medium HE-SFM (purchased from ThermoFisher, USA) by adding 10 ng/mL bFGF.

[0051] Step 3: induction of corneal endothelial-like cells comprises:

[0052] coating a culture plate with 10 ug/ml laminin and 10 mg/ml chondroitin sulfate and irrigating with pbs, digesting SKPs with 0.05% pancreatic enzyme 0.02% EDTA, inoculating the digested SKPs in the culture plate, co-culturing SKPs and B4G12 using transwell chamber in manner of non-contact, digesting corneal endothelial-like cells obtained by induction every 7-10 days with pancreatic enzyme-EDTA and passaging.

[0053] The transwell chamber described above (purchased from Corning, No. 3450) is mosaic chamber with diameter of 0.4 m. Cells will not migrate from upper chamber to lower chamber, but cell excretion factors are allowed to pass through and thus inducing the cells in the lower chamber to differentiate. The chamber has a transparent thin polyester film, providing an excellent cell visibility and cell structure under phase contrast microscope.

Embodiment 2 Identification of Corneal Endothelial-Like Cells and Corneal Reparative Experiment

[0054] Cell morphology of part of the cells are changed to be polygon after 4 days, and the proportion of the changed cells increases with time and polygonal cells takes the majority after 8 days with the cells forming tightly connected single Mosaic arrangement with each other. The induced cells are proved to have similar morphology and marker expression by confirmation using optical microscope, immunofluorescence, real-time quantitative PCR and western blotting. The induced human corneal endothelial-like cells passage every 7 to 10 days and can stably passage 3 to 4 generations. The cells can still maintain their morphology and marker expression after passaging. FIG. 2 refers to a picture of induced corneal endothelial-like cells under optical microscope. FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 refer to results respectively detected by RT-PCR and by western blotting.

[0055] Rabbit corneal endothelial transplantation experiment comprises the following procedures. Firstly, intravenous anesthesia of New Zealand rabbit was done with pentobarbital sodium, followed by normal disinfection, topical anesthesia was performed by Benoxil, conjunctival sac was irrigated with disinfected saline solution and lidocaine was retrobulbar injected. Then a scleral tunnel was made under the operating microscope, and paracentesis of the anterior chamber was done followed by injection of viscoelastics. Then corneal endothelium was abrased and the corneal endothelial-like cells are transplanted at a density of 3000/mm.sup.2 into the anterior chamber, closing the scleral tunnel in the end. The operated eye should be kept in down position for 6 hours after the operation. Tobramycin and Dexamethasone Ophthalmic Ointment as well as Ofloxacin Eye Ointment are used in the operated eye. Inspection with slitlamp, confocal laser scanning microscopy, AC-OCT and etc. are periodically performed. The dead corneal cells are periodically taken to be inspected with fluorescence microscope, HE stain and etc.

[0056] The animal experiment shows that opacification of the rabbit cornea is gradually mitigated, with thickness of cornea gradually decreased. The cornea is almost completely transparent at 7 days after the transplantation (see FIG. 6). There are single-layered tightly-arranged polygonal corneal endothelial-like cells in corneal descemet membrane. Red fluorescence cells are seen and Na+/K+ATPase are expressed. While in the comparison group, no endothelial cells are found in corneal descemet membrane, with no red fluorescence been found.

[0057] The embodiments described above are only the description of preferred embodiments of the present invention, but not limitation of the scope of the present invention. Any changes or improvement made by people having ordinary skill in the art within spirit of the present invention shall be included in the protection scope of the present invention.