从胚胎干细胞到视网膜

From embryonic stem cells to retina

视网膜退行性病变影响着全世界数百万人。然而,视网膜是人体再生能力很差的一类组织,成年机体无法自我更新那些病变中丢失的视网膜细胞,导致视网膜退行性病变的不可逆性。因此,恢复患者视觉将依赖于引入外源细胞替代丢失的视网膜神经元。胚胎干细胞(ES细胞)具有无限的自我更新能力和形成机体所有类型细胞的巨大分化潜力。这两个特性使得ES细胞成为细胞替代疗法的理想供体细胞。近年来,人们在探索将ES和诱导多能干细胞(iPS细胞)体外定向诱导分化为视网膜神经元,甚至整个视网膜方面已取得多项进展,并且体外形成的视网膜细胞可以与宿主视网膜整合。在此篇综述中,首先简要概括哺乳动物视网膜的组织结构、发育过程和调控机制,然后,重点阐述近年来科研工作者探索ES/iPS细胞体外诱导分化为视网膜细胞和组织的研究进展。

Retinal degenerative diseases affect millions of people worldwide. However, retina in human has poor potential for regeneration to compensate for cell loss. Thus, cell replacement therapy is a promising strategy to ultimately cure retinal degenerative diseases. Embryonic stem cells（ES cells） are pluripotent cells and they can grow indefinitely and differentiate into derivatives of all three germ layers. These properties make ES cells promosing for cell replacement therapies. Nowadays, ES cells can be induced to differentiate into retinal cells, even the whole retinal tissue. Furthermore, ES derived retinal cells can integrate into host retina. In this review, we first briefly summarize the organizational structure, the development process and the regulatory mechanism of the mammalian retina, and then focus on the progress of differentiation of retinal cell and retinal tissue from ES and induced pluripotent stem cells.