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Updated: Aug 15, 2026
Isolation of Retinal Stem Cells from the Mouse Eye
Published on: September 11, 2010
[Isolation and identification of human embryonic retinal stem cells]
Hai-yan Yu1, Li Shen, Wei Wang
1Department of Ophthalmology, Third Hospital, Beijing Medical University, Beijing 100083, China.
Objective:
To isolate and identify human retinal stem cells (HRCs) from human embryonic retina.
Methods:
HRCs were isolated from neural retinas at the 16th-20th week of gestation and cultured in either serum-free or serum-containing media. The expression of nestin antigen and retinal terminal cell markers were conformed by immunofluorescence labeling technique. RT-PCR analysis was used to identify the difference of nestin gene expression in HRCs and differentiated cells.
Results:
HRCs divided into multiple generations (up to passage 8) and expressed nestin. Other characteristics of the isolated cells were to differentiate into glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive glial cells (Müller cells) and retina-specific neurons expressing rhodopsin, syntaxin, PKCalpha, and Thy1. These were markers for rod receptors, amacrines, bipolar cells, and ganglion cells respectively. When cultured with serum, the expression of nestin was significantly downregulated in HRCs.
Conclusion:
Human neural retina at the 16th-20th week of gestation harbors neural stem cells that are capable of selfrenewal and multilineage differentiation.
