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Published December 1, 2005 | public
Journal Article

Corneal keratocytes retain neural crest progenitor cell properties

Abstract

Corneal keratocytes have a remarkable ability to heal the cornea throughout life. Given their developmental origin from the cranial neural crest, we asked whether this regenerative ability was related to the stem cell-like properties of their neural crest precursors. To this end, we challenged corneal stromal keratocytes by injecting them into a new environment along cranial neural crest migratory pathways. The results show that injected stromal keratocytes change their phenotype, proliferate and migrate ventrally adjacent to host neural crest cells. They then contribute to the corneal endothelial and stromal layers, the musculature of the eye, mandibular process, blood vessels and cardiac cushion tissue of the host. However, they fail to form neurons in cranial ganglia or branchial arch cartilage, illustrating that they are at least partially restricted progenitors rather than stem cells. The data show that, even at late embryonic stages, corneal keratocytes are not terminally differentiated, but maintain plasticity and multipotentiality, contributing to non-neuronal cranial neural crest derivatives.

Additional Information

© 2005 Elsevier Inc. Received for publication 19 August 2005, revised 27 September 2005, accepted 30 September 2005. Available online 2 November 2005. We are grateful to Dr. James Funderburgh for providing the I22 antibody and to Anitha Rao for technical assistance. This work was supported by an Elizabeth Ross Fellowship (to PYL), and NIH grant, NS 36585 (to MBF).

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 17, 2023