​Novel research from a team at the Tokyo Dental College Ichikawa General Hospital (Japan) has demonstrated that human oral mucosa middle interstitial tissue fibroblasts (hOMFs) could be a suitable source for corneal regeneration.
Oral mucosa-derived stem cells have been shown to contain neural crest-origin cells that potentially differentiate into multiple cell types. Indeed, oral mucosa epithelial cells have been used in corneal epithelium reconstruction. What is more, attaining transplant cells from the oral mucosa could be advantageous as it is a relatively simple and not very invasive procedure.
The latest research from Kazunari Higa and colleagues has taken steps on the road to moving hOMFs to the clinic. Following isolation and culture of hOMFs containing neural crest-origin cells, they demonstrated their ability to differentiate into mesenchymal and neural lineages. This included corneal keratocytes. What is more, they also demonstrated the utility of hOMFs as a substitute for feeder cells in epithelial cell sheets.
"Although further characterization of hOMFs is necessary, hOMFs are a potential cellular source for autologous regeneration of mesenchymal or neural crest-derived tissues," concluded the authors. "We anticipate their use as a new autologous cell source in refractory diseases of neural crest-derived tissues such as ocular surfaces."
The full article is published open access in Future Science OA.
Higa K, Satake Y, Shimazaki J. The characterization of human oral mucosal fibroblasts and their use as feeder cells in cultivated epithelial sheets. Future Sci. OA doi:10.4155/fsoa-2017-0074 (2017).