Abstract
SummaryIn healthy cornea, epithelium is renewed by limbal stem cells (LSCs) and LSCs transplantation has been used to treat limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD). However, this is only possible if enough healthy limbal tissue is available. Thus, novel cell sources are needed. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) including embryonic stem cells (hESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) provide unique opportunities for differentiation of limbal and corneal epithelial cells.We have previously developed an efficient method for differentiating hPSC towards corneal epithelial progenitor cells capable of terminal differentiation towards mature corneal epithelial‐like cells. With the protocolprotein expression of the corneal epithelial progenitor marker ΔNp63 was greatly enhanced, with up to 95% of cells being ΔNp63‐positive. Finally, after a total of six weeks in differentiation culture, the two markers specific to differentiated corneal epithelium, cytokeratins 3 and 12, were expressed in an average of 35% and 71% of cells, respectively. In recent studies we have continued the molecular and functional characterization of these cells providing more support that those could potentially be used for treating LSCD in the future.
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