[Progresses of in vitro culture and differentiation in conjunctival epithelial stem cells].

Conjunctiva epithelial stem cells are bipotent cells giving rise to both conjunctival epithelial cells and goblet cells. They play a central role in ocular surface homeostasis and wound repair, and also have great capacities of self-renewal, proliferation and differentiation. As a result, conjunctival epithelial stem cells are main resources of seed cells for tissue engineering conjunctiva. To review the current research of conjunctival epithelia stem cells such as their features, distribution, ways to identify stem cells, in vitro culture and induced differentiation to goblet cells.