Breakthrough in stem cell transplantation of eye

By K. Venkateshwarlu

HYDERABAD, OCT. 30. In a significant breakthrough, a team of scientists from the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) have successfully transplanted cultured stem cells from the healthy eye to the diseased one, bringing light to the people who nearly lost their sight in accidents.

Sustaining the current excitement about stem cells, in all 33 patients who suffered from conditions such as chemical burns, allergic reactions to drug and auto-immune diseases causing damage to the part of the eye called limbus (the brownish, pigmented junction between the central transparent cornea and the peripheral area, the sclera), were successfully treated through this method in the last few months.

Stem cells are found in limbus, which regenerates the ocular surface of the cornea. Conditions such as chemical burns, damages the limbus resulting in limbal stem cell deficiency characterised by corneal scarring, vascularisation and corneal blindness. The commonest type of burns found from the cases reporting at LVPEI being the injury from lime consumed with `pan'. Quite often the lime gushes out in a forceful stream when a small sachet containing it is pressed, injuring the eye directly.

Dr. Virender Sangwan, eye surgeon and a member of the team, said the new advanced treatment in such condition involved transplanting the cultured limbal stem cells instead of the entire limbal tissue as was the case earlier, followed by corneal transplantation. Under the procedure, a one to two mm limbal tissue is taken from the healthy eye. The cells from the tissue are cultured on an appropriate surface and then grafted on to the diseased eye. The procedure of transplanting the cultured stem cells could be from the patient's own healthy eye or from another person's (living or dead). He said besides LVPEI in India, such treatment is being given only in two other places in the world - U.S. and Taiwan.

The advantages of this procedure were use of patient's own tissue from the healthy eye to treat the diseased one avoiding the risk rejection, which is generally the case with cadaveric tissue.

It also reduced the quantity of limbal biopsy that needs to be taken from the healthy eye. The procedure does not involve either embryonic tissue or aborted fetuses.

The other team members are Dr. Geeta Kashyap Vemuganti of LVPEI and Dr. Shashi Singh of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here.

The LVPEI has been in clinical stem cell transplantation (both cadaveric and living related) for few years now but it was for the first time that it was able to culture the limbal stem cells for clinical use and for studying the basic aspects of stem cell biology.

Impressed by the research work on limbal cell transplantation, the Department of Biotechnology, has sanctioned Rs. 24 lakhs.

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