A tissue-engineered corneal wound healing model for the characterization of reepithelialization

Progress in tissue engineering has led to the discovery of technologies allowing reconstruction of autologous tissues from the patient's own cells and the development of new in vitro models to study cellular and molecular mechanisms implicated in wound healing. The outer surface of the eye, the cornea, is involved in the sense of sight, thus an adequate reepithelialization process after wounding is essential in order to maintain corneal function. In this chapter, protocols to generate a new in vitro three-dimensional human corneal wound healing model suitable for studying the different components that play important roles in corneal reepithelialization are described in details. The methods include extraction and culture of human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs), human corneal fibroblasts, a complete description of the cornea reconstructed by tissue-engineering as well as the corneal wound healing model.