Adhesion complex in cultivated limbal epithelium on amniotic membrane after in vivo transplantation
Mee Kum Kim1, Jang Won Heo, Jae Lim Lee
1Department of Ophthalmology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, and Artificial Eye Laboratory Clinical Research Center, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
Purpose:
To investigate adhesion complex formation in cultivated human limbal epithelium after transplantation into the limbal deficient model.
Methods:
Cultivated epithelium on amniotic membrane was transplanted into limbal deficient rabbits. The transplanted rabbits and the controls were sacrificed at 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks. The adhesion complex was examined by electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry.
Results:
Morphologically identifiable hemidesmosomes appeared at 1 week, and matured adhesion complex was found at 3 weeks. Collagen VII was partly stained after transplantation. The mean numbers of hemidesmosomes/2.25 microm were 2.3 +/- 0.9, 2.5 +/- 0.5, 5.2 +/- 1.0, and 4.0 +/- 0.9 at 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks, and all they were smaller than those in the control, respectively (p < 0.05). It reached 137.4% of the density of hemidesmosomes in human cornea at 3 weeks. The average depths of anchoring fibril were 0.10 +/- 0.03, 0.27 +/- 0.06, 0.45 +/- 0.06, and 0.46 +/- 0.12 microm at 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks, reaching 75.0% of that in the human cornea after 3 weeks, although they were shallower than that of the control, respectively (p < 0.05).
Conclusions:
Assembly of adhesion complex in cultivated epithelium transplanted in limbal deficient rabbit might recover to the level of that in the human after 3 weeks, although it was delayed compared with that in normal wound healing of the rabbit.
