Investigation of overrun-processed porous hyaluronic acid carriers in corneal endothelial tissue engineering

Jui Yang Lai, Hsiao Yun Cheng, David Hui-Kang Ma

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a linear polysaccharide naturally found in the eye and therefore is one of the most promising biomaterials for corneal endothelial regenerative medicine. This study reports, for the first time, the development of overrun-processed porous HA hydrogels for corneal endothelial cell (CEC) sheet transplantation and tissue engineering applications. The hydrogel carriers were characterized to examine their structures and functions. Evaluations of carbodiimide cross-linked air-dried and freeze-dried HA samples were conducted simultaneously for comparison. The results indicated that during the fabrication of freeze-dried HA discs, a technique of introducing gas bubbles in the aqueous biopolymer solutions can be used to enlarge pore structure and prevent dense surface skin formation. Among all the groups studied, the overrun-processed porous HA carriers show the greatest biological stability, the highest freezable water content and glucose permeability, and the minimized adverse effects on ionic pump function of rabbit CECs. After transfer and attachment of bioengineered CEC sheets to the overrun-processed HA hydrogel carriers, the therapeutic efficacy of cell/ biopolymer constructs was tested using a rabbit model with corneal endothelial dysfunction. Clinical observations including slit-lamp biomicroscopy, specular microscopy, and corneal thickness measurements showed that the construct implants can regenerate corneal endothelium and restore corneal transparency at 4 weeks postoperatively. Our findings suggest that cell sheet transplantation using overrun-processed porous HA hydrogels offers a new way to reconstruct the posterior corneal surface and improve endothelial tissue function.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0136067
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume10
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 21 08 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2015 Lai et al.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Investigation of overrun-processed porous hyaluronic acid carriers in corneal endothelial tissue engineering'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this