Corneal regeneration by utilizing collagen based materials

Abstract

Corneal disease is the main cause of blindness and keratoplasty is the only widely accepted treatment. Shortage of donor tissue makes the biomaterials for corneal regeneration a hot area of research. Collagen is the main component of corneal stroma, so collagen becomes a promising material for corneal repair. However, due to the drawbacks of collagen, it needs to be further modified to satisfy the requirement of corneal regeneration. In this article, we highlight the importance of collagen materials for corneal repair, and summarize several methods of preparing collagen based corneal regeneration materials, including chemical crosslinking, plastic compression of collagen, and collagen vitrigel. These modification methods can make collagen membranes with remarkable properties such as enough mechanical and suture retention strength, antibacterial property and excellent optical property. These materials may provide potential treatment for corneal disease.