Identification and differentiation therapy strategy of pterygium in vitro

Pterygium is an invasive hyperplasia, resulting from the hyper-proliferation of epithelial cells in cornea. The aim of our present study is to identify stem cells derived from pterygiums and detect differentiation strategy of the pterygium stem cells in vitro. Fundamental properties of the cultured pterygium stem cells were mainly studied using immunofluorescence staining. While clone formation and MTT assay were utilized to evaluate the cell viability. Pterygium stem cells could be cultivated easily, expanded efficiently, but expressed multilineage stem cell markers, which could be differentiated into neuron, osteocytes and adipocytes in vitro. Pterygium-derived spheres expressed stem cell markers and the epithelial-mesenchymal transition markers after treating with the inducing assays. Proliferation and viability of pterygium stem cells could be inhibited after inducing differentiation indicating that differentiation strategy will be a promising strategy in future therapies of pterygium. Cells derived from pterygiums express multilineage stem cell markers and could be induced differentiation. Differentiation therapy strategy could inhibit pterygium stem cell in vitro.