Biomaterials for corneal endothelial cell culture and tissue engineering

Mohit Parekh; Vito Romano; Kareem Hassanin; Valeria Testa; Rintra Wongvisavavit; Stefano Ferrari; Atikah Haneef; Colin Willoughby; Diego Ponzin; Vishal Jhanji; Namrata Sharma; Julie Daniels; Stephen B Kaye; Sajjad Ahmad; Hannah J Levis

doi:10.1177/2041731421990536

Biomaterials for corneal endothelial cell culture and tissue engineering

J Tissue Eng. 2021 Feb 16:12:2041731421990536. doi: 10.1177/2041731421990536. eCollection 2021 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Mohit Parekh^{1

2}, Vito Romano^{3

4

5}, Kareem Hassanin³, Valeria Testa^{6

7}, Rintra Wongvisavavit^{1

8}, Stefano Ferrari², Atikah Haneef⁵, Colin Willoughby⁹, Diego Ponzin², Vishal Jhanji¹⁰, Namrata Sharma¹¹, Julie Daniels¹, Stephen B Kaye³, Sajjad Ahmad^{1

12}, Hannah J Levis⁵

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Brain Sciences, Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, UK.
² International Center for Ocular Physiopathology, Fondazione Banca degli Occhi del Veneto Onlus, Venice, Italy.
³ St. Paul's Eye Unit, Royal Liverpool Broadgreen University Hospital, Liverpool, UK.
⁴ Instituto Universitario Fernandez-Vega, Universidad de Oviedo and Fundacion de Investigacion on Oftalmologica, Oviedo, Spain.
⁵ Department of Eye and Vision Science, Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
⁶ Eye Clinic, Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
⁷ Ospedale Policlinico San Martino IRCCS, Genoa, Italy.
⁸ HRH Princess Chulabhorn College of Medical Sciences, Chulabhorn Royal Academy, Bangkok, Thailand.
⁹ School of biomedical sciences, University of Ulster, Belfast, UK.
¹⁰ Department of Ophthalmology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
¹¹ Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
¹² Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Trust Foundation, London, UK.

Abstract

The corneal endothelium is the posterior monolayer of cells that are responsible for maintaining overall transparency of the avascular corneal tissue via pump function. These cells are non-regenerative in vivo and therefore, approximately 40% of corneal transplants undertaken worldwide are a result of damage or dysfunction of endothelial cells. The number of available corneal donor tissues is limited worldwide, hence, cultivation of human corneal endothelial cells (hCECs) in vitro has been attempted in order to produce tissue engineered corneal endothelial grafts. Researchers have attempted to recreate the current gold standard treatment of replacing the endothelial layer with accompanying Descemet's membrane or a small portion of stroma as support with tissue engineering strategies using various substrates of both biologically derived and synthetic origin. Here we review the potential biomaterials that are currently in development to support the transplantation of a cultured monolayer of hCECs.

Keywords: Cornea; biomaterials; cell culture; endothelial cells; tissue engineering.

Publication types

Review