Can bone marrow cells give rise to cornea epithelial cells?

The corneal epithelium plays a critical role in maintaining the cornea's transparency and its avascularity. Severe damage to the limbal region results in serious problems with the corneal surface such as persistent epithelial defects, conjunctivalisation with vascularisation, keratinisation, scarring, etc. with associated profound visual loss. In order to rescue such damaged ocular surfaces, corneal epithelial stem cells were used to reconstruct artificial corneas by employing tissue engineering method. This procedure, however, requires a large limbal graft from the healthy eye and it is not possible in patients who have bilateral lesions. Therefore we should find other autologous cells as a source of cells for the reconstruction of the corneal surface. c-kit+ enriched bone marrow stem cells can give rise to different epithelial cells. So we hypothesize that this might apply to the cornea as well. Cultured cell sheets composed of autologous c-kit+ enriched bone marrow stem cells may be used to reconstruct corneal surfaces and can restore vision in patients with bilateral severe disorders of the ocular surface.