Study of in vitro differentiation of human immature dental pulp stem cells into retinal neurons-like cells

Abstract

Retinian lesions can commit patients independent of age, race, sex and social class. These injuries are extremely serious, once neurons which compound retina are cells with no capacity of self-renewal. When these neurons are damaged, the vision capacity is permanently lost. Currently, the treatments aim only to decrease retinal damages instead of promoting an effective recovery of vision. Moreover, these treatments are much expensive and cause patient morbidity. Nowadays, the use of stem cells for the treatment of diseases considered until now incurable is becoming an alternative tool. Stem cells are a cell population with self-renewal capacity and are able to differentiate towards any cell type, furthermore, when re-introduced in an organism, they are capable to restore injured tissue. Due to these properties, stem cells are extremely attractive, as a treatment potential source from tissue regeneration. Considering the difficulties of obtaining stem cells (SC) from retina and also the amount of patients with visual deficiency, herein, we aim to develop an efficient method to differentiate human immature dental pulp stem cells, previously isolated and characterized by our group, into retinal neurons-like cells, which can represent a new source of treatment to retinal degenerative diseases. (AU)