Japanese researchers have for the first timeconvert stem cells from a mammal into an embryonic eye. The results, which the magazine echoesNature, open the possibility that, in the future,restore sight in blind people with transplanted retinas generated from their own stem cellsof the patient.
In their experiments, Yoshiki Sasai and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, grew mouse embryonic stem cells in carefully designed culture medium, achieving thatdifferentiate and assemble themselves into a three-dimensional structure, an optical cup, with two walls corresponding to the inner and outer layers of the retina during the development of an embryo.
“What we have done is solve a nearly century-long problem in embryology by showing that retinal precursors have the inherent ability to generate the complex structure of the optic cup,” Sasai said in a statement. “We are on the right track togenerate not only different types of cells, but organized tissues“that can be used in regenerative medicine, he adds.
Sasai and his colleagues accompany the study with a series ofphotos and videos that record for the first time in real time the early stages of eye development in mammals, with the particularity that the images have not been obtained from live animals but from a laboratory culture.
