Human Umbilical Cord-Mesenchymal Stem Cells Survive and Migrate within the Vitreous Cavity and Ameliorate Retinal Damage in a Novel Rat Model of Chronic Glaucoma

Figure 1

Development of rat chronic ocular hypertension (COH) models. (a) The schematic diagram illustrating the process of establishing the COH model by rat Tenon’s fibroblasts and ameliorating retinal damage by hUC-MSCs. (b) Morphology of green fluorescent protein- (GFP-) Tenon’s fibroblasts isolated from the eyes of a transgenic Sprague-Dawley rat that ubiquitously expressed GFP. The fibroblasts were cultured for 3 days at the second generation. Scale bar: 200 μm. (c) Representative fluorescent and bright-field microscopy images (under a fluorescent microscope and an ophthalmic operating microscope, respectively) of the anterior segment of the same rat at 3 and 7 days after injection of GFP-Tenon’s fibroblasts into the anterior chamber. Tenon’s fibroblasts were visualized in the center within the anterior chamber by fluorescent GFP. Compared with the normal left eye (far-right column), the iris at the edge of the pupil of the treated right eye was attached to the lens and pupil atresia occurred, resulting in the iris appearing to have bulged forward, as viewed under an ophthalmic operating microscope at 7 days. (d) Representative rat eyeball at 8 weeks after injection of Tenon’s fibroblasts into the anterior chamber. The panels labeled 1#, 2#, 3#, and 4# portray the anterior segment of the representative rats 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively.

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