Deep frozen amniotic membrane used as a scaffold and/or carrier for different cell types.

Amniotic membrane is a biological material widely used in plastic and reconstructive surgery and in ophthalmology. Due to its excellent biocompatibility and strength we tried to use it as a scaffold for the in vitro cultivation of different cell types, especially keratinocytes and limbal stem cells. It was possible to cultivate limbal stem cells and keratinocytes without using 3T3 mouse fibroblast feeder cells on deep frozen amniotic membranes. The amniotic membrane can also be used as a carrier for suspensions of different types of cells, allowing a substantial reduction of the cultivation time needed to prepare cell cultures for clinical application to burn patients. Our results show that the amniotic membrane seems not only to be an excellent carrier for human keratinocytes and corneal limbal stem cells, but also for other cell types, including dermal fibroblasts, adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells and chondrocytes.