McIntosh Owen D, Britchford Emily R, Beeken Lydia J, Hopkinson Andrew, Sidney Laura E
Academic Ophthalmology, Mental Health and Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
NuVision Biotherapies Ltd, Medicity, Nottingham, UK.
Cell Tissue Bank. 2025 Jan 9;26(1):7. doi: 10.1007/s10561-024-10155-y.
Globally there is a shortage of available donor corneas with only 1 cornea available for every 70 needed. A large limitation to corneal transplant surgery is access to quality donor tissue due to inadequate eye donation services and infrastructure in many countries, compounded by the fact that there are few available long-term storage solutions for effectively preserving spare donor corneas collected in countries with a surplus. In this study, we describe a novel technology termed low-temperature vacuum evaporation (LTVE) that can effectively dry-preserve surplus donor corneal tissue, allowing it to be stored for approximately 5 years, shipped at room temperature, and stored on hospital shelves before rehydration prior to ophthalmic surgery. The dry-preserved corneas demonstrate equivalent biological characteristics to non-dried donor tissue, with the exception that epithelial and endothelial cells are removed and keratocytes are rendered non-viable and encapsulated within the preserved extracellular matrix. Structure and composition of the dried and rehydrated corneas remained identical to that of non-dried control corneas. Matrix-bound cytokines and growth factors were not affected by the drying and rehydration of the corneas. The ability to preserve human donor corneas using LTVE will have considerable impact on global corneal supply; utilisation of preserved corneas in lamellar keratoplasties, corneal perforations, ulcers, and tectonic support, will allow non-preserved donor tissue to be reserved for where it is truly required.
全球范围内可用的供体角膜短缺，每70例需求仅1例角膜可供使用。角膜移植手术的一个重大限制是，由于许多国家的眼捐赠服务和基础设施不足，难以获得高质量的供体组织，此外，在供体过剩的国家，能够有效保存采集到的备用供体角膜的长期存储解决方案也很少。在本研究中，我们描述了一种名为低温真空蒸发（LTVE）的新技术，它可以有效地对过剩的供体角膜组织进行干燥保存，使其能够储存约5年，在室温下运输，并在眼科手术复水前储存在医院货架上。干燥保存的角膜与未干燥的供体组织具有同等的生物学特性，不同的是上皮细胞和内皮细胞被去除，角膜细胞失去活性并被包裹在保存的细胞外基质中。干燥和复水后的角膜的结构和组成与未干燥的对照角膜相同。与基质结合的细胞因子和生长因子不受角膜干燥和复水的影响。使用LTVE保存人类供体角膜的能力将对全球角膜供应产生重大影响；在板层角膜移植、角膜穿孔、溃疡和结构性支持中使用保存的角膜，将使未保存的供体组织能够保留给真正需要的地方。
