From retinal organoids to “retinal organ”

Abstract

<p indent="0mm">Retinal degenerative disease is a common ophthalmological disease that causes severe blindness, and difficult to treat in clinics at present. Because retinal tissue is not easy to obtain and cannot be cultured, it is difficult to study the mechanism and treatment of retinal-related diseases. Due to the significant species differences between the retina of animals and humans, the results of many animal experiments in the past were often difficult to be utilized to solve clinical problems. The emergence of retinal organoids has become a new hope for solving these problems. It enables retinal-related diseases to be reproduced in cell culture dishes for research on disease mechanisms and drug screening. More importantly, it can be used for cell transplantation to replace degenerated retinal cells, which is expected to restore sight to the blind. However, we must also recognize that there are still some bottlenecks that need to be solved urgently in retinal organoid simulation diseases, such as the low stability of differentiation, lack of blood vessels and neuroimmune cells. Although the application of micro-millifluidic bioreactor has improved the differentiation of retinal organs, current technology can only achieve a level of “organoids” and has not yet reached the standard of “retinal organ”. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to sort out the applications and existing problems of retinal organoids, and think about how to further promote the development of retinal organoids that can be used for regenerative medicine, in order to better facilitate the treatment and research of retinal diseases.