Lwigale Peter Y, Cressy Paola A, Bronner-Fraser Marianne
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Dev Biol. 2005 Dec 1;288(1):284-93. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2005.09.046. Epub 2005 Nov 2.
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.
角膜基质细胞在其整个生命周期中都具有显著的角膜愈合能力。鉴于它们起源于颅神经嵴，我们探究这种再生能力是否与其神经嵴前体细胞的干细胞样特性有关。为此，我们通过将角膜基质细胞沿着颅神经嵴迁移途径注射到一个新环境中，对其进行挑战。结果显示，注射的基质细胞改变其表型，增殖并向宿主神经嵴细胞腹侧迁移。然后，它们对宿主的角膜内皮和基质层、眼部肌肉组织、下颌突、血管及心脏垫组织做出贡献。然而，它们无法在颅神经节或鳃弓软骨中形成神经元，这表明它们至少是部分受限的祖细胞而非干细胞。数据表明，即使在胚胎后期阶段，角膜基质细胞也并非终末分化，而是保持可塑性和多能性，对非神经元性颅神经嵴衍生物做出贡献。
