Vesicles released by rodent ciliary epithelium stem cells and their effect on pluripotency and retinal progenitors induction

Abstract

The retina is an essential structure for sensory perception in vertebrates, contains photoreceptors (rods and cones) and various subtypes of neurons (bipolar cells, ganglion, amacrine and horizontal) connected in a complex neural network for processing visual information. This tissue is susceptible to various environmental and genetic degenerative insults resulting in visual loss or complete blindness and, although not able to regenerate, some epithelial cells located in the peripheral retina, in the Ciliary Epithelium region, were identified as progenitor/stem cells with the capacity to generate retinal neurons. Although Ciliary Epithelium cells has presented retinal regenerative capacity, this ability is not developed properly, that indicates the presence of inhibitory mechanisms acting on the regenerative potential of these cells. Commonly, inhibitory factors can be released by different cell types and can act at the neighboring cells, being released and travelling inside microvesicles structures. Thus, this project aims to study the presence of microvesicles structures in Ciliary Epithelium cells as well as its release, content analysis, incorporation into adjacent cells and its effect on the regenerative capacity. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the factors involved in retinal regeneration and visual rescue, aiming a possible retinal regenerative therapy or complement to currently available therapies. (AU)