Use of discarded corneo-scleral rims to create cornea-like tissue.

Corneal disease is a major cause of blindness. Transplantation of cadaver-derived corneas (keratoplasty) is still the current therapy of choice; however, the global shortage of donor corneas continues to drive a search for alternatives. To this end, biosynthetic corneal substitutes have recently begun to gain importance. Here, we present a novel method for the generation of a cornea-like tissue (CLT), using corneo-scleral rims discarded after keratoplasty. Type I collagen was polymerized within the corneo-scleral rim, which functioned as a 'host' mould, directing the 'guest' collagen to polymerize into disc-shaped cornea-like material (CLM), displaying the shape, curvature, thickness, and transparency of normal cornea. This polymerization of collagen appears to derive from some morphogenetic influence exerted by the corneo-scleral rim. Once the CLM had formed naturally, we used collagen crosslinking to fortify it, and then introduced cells to generate a stratified epithelial layer to create cornea-like tissue (CLT) displaying characteristics of native cornea. Through the excision and reuse of rims, each rim turned out to be useful for the generation of multiple cornea-shaped CLTs. The approach effectively helps to shorten the gap between demand and supply of CLMs/CLTs for transplantation. We are exploring the surgical transplantation of this CLT into animal eyes, as keratoprostheses, as a precursor to future applications involving human eyes. It is possible to use either the CLM or CLT, for patients with varying corneal blinding diseases. © 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Citation

Maryada Sharma, Subhpreet Kaur, Nimisha A Mavlankar, Alokananda Chanda, Parul Chawla Gupta, Uma Nahar Saikia, Jagat Ram, Asish Pal, Sanjay Mandal, Purnananda Guptasarma, Manni Luthra-Guptasarma. Use of discarded corneo-scleral rims to create cornea-like tissue. Molecular biology reports. 2024 Mar 06;51(1):391

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PMID: 38446253

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