Regulatory compliant tissue-engineered human corneal endothelial grafts restore corneal function of rabbits with bullous keratopathy

• Main Authors: Peh, Gary S. L., Ang, Heng-Pei, Lwin, Chan N., Adnan, Khadijah, George, Benjamin L., Seah, Xin-Yi, Lin, Shu-Jun, Bhogal, Maninder, Liu, Yu-Chi, Tan, Donald T., Mehta, Jodhbir Singh
• Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Materials; Tissue-engineered Endothelial Keratoplasty; Corneal Endothelial
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88159; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45658
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Corneal transplantation is the only treatment available to restore vision for individuals with blindness due to corneal endothelial dysfunction. However, severe shortage of available donor corneas remains a global challenge. Functional regulatory compliant tissue-engineered corneal endothelial graft substitute can alleviate this reliance on cadaveric corneal graft material. Here, isolated primary human corneal endothelial cells (CEnCs) propagated using a dual media approach refined towards regulatory compliance showed expression of markers indicative of the human corneal endothelium, and can be tissue-engineered onto thin corneal stromal carriers. Both cellular function and clinical adaptability was demonstrated in a pre-clinical rabbit model of bullous keratopathy using a tissue-engineered endothelial keratoplasty (TE-EK) approach, adapted from routine endothelial keratoplasty procedure for corneal transplantation in human patients. Cornea thickness of rabbits receiving TE-EK graft gradually reduced over the first two weeks, and completely recovered to a thickness of approximately 400 µm by the third week of transplantation, whereas corneas of control rabbits remained significantly thicker over 1,000 µm (p < 0.05) throughout the course of the study. This study showed convincing evidence of the adaptability of the propagated CEnCs and their functionality via a TE-EK approach, which holds great promises in translating the use of cultured CEnCs into the clinic.