Research on Retinal Transplantation of Neural Progenitors

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Mechanical injury was induced in the adult rat retina by a hooked needle. A cell suspension (containing 90,000 neural stem cells) was slowly injected into the vitreous space. The specimens were processed for immunohistochemical studies at one, two and four weeks after the transplantation.After the mechanical injury, incorporation of the grafted stem cells in the host retinas was found as early as one week after transplantation. lmmunohistochemical studies showed that, at one week, more than half of the grafted cells expressed nestin, a marker for neural precursor cells, but not other markers. At four weeks, some grafted cells showed immunoreactivity for microtubule-associated protein (MAP) 2ab, MAP5, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), suggesting progress in differentiation into cells of neuronal and astroglial lineages. However, they showed no immunoreactivity for HPC-1, calbindin and rhodopsin, suggesting that they did not differentiate into mature retinal neurons. lmmunoelectron microscopy revealed the formation of synapse-like structures between graft and host cells.By the manipulation of mechanical injury, the incorporation and subsequent differentiation of the grafted stem cells into neuronal and glial lineage, including the formation of synapse-like structures, can be achieved even in the adult rat retina.