Li Yijian, Liu Yong
Southwest Hospital/Southwest Eye Hospital, Third Military Medical University (Army Medical University), Chongqing, China.
Key Lab of Visual Damage and Regeneration & Restoration of Chongqing, Chongqing, China.
Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2025 May 1;66(5):45. doi: 10.1167/iovs.66.5.45.
The cornea, which refracts light toward the retina and acts as a protective barrier for the eye, is critical for our visual system. The corneal epithelium, continuously renewed by corneal epithelial stem cells (CESCs), is required to maintain corneal transparency and thus is critical for vision. Recent experiments in corneal epithelial lineage tracing, live imaging, and single-cell RNA sequencing have deepened our understanding of CESCs and uncovered their unexpected properties. In this review, we focus on recent progress in elucidating these essential properties of CESCs, including their location and how they maintain their populations and their heterogeneity. Additionally, we discuss the limitations of current studies and highlight critical issues that urgently need to be addressed in the field of CESCs. These new insights into CESCs will evolve into game-changing therapeutics for corneal diseases by harnessing CESCs in regenerative medicine.
角膜将光线折射向视网膜，并作为眼睛的保护屏障，对我们的视觉系统至关重要。角膜上皮由角膜上皮干细胞（CESCs）不断更新，对于维持角膜透明度是必需的，因此对视力至关重要。最近在角膜上皮谱系追踪、实时成像和单细胞RNA测序方面的实验加深了我们对CESCs的理解，并揭示了它们意想不到的特性。在这篇综述中，我们关注于阐明CESCs这些基本特性的最新进展，包括它们的位置以及它们如何维持其群体数量和异质性。此外，我们讨论了当前研究的局限性，并强调了CESCs领域迫切需要解决的关键问题。这些对CESCs的新见解将通过在再生医学中利用CESCs，发展成为改变角膜疾病治疗方式的疗法。
