ROCK Inhibitors can Enhance the Adhesion of Cultured Corneal Endothelial Cells

Corneal endothelial dysfunction is a major cause of visual impairment, since these cells maintain corneal transparency. Although surgical techniques have been developed to replace abnormal corneal endothelium, these procedures are technically difficult and challenging due to a shortage of donor corneas. Regenerative medicine uses specially grown tissues to replace injured ones and has been successful in treating a variety of disorders in a number of organs including the cornea. Injection of cultured corneal endothelial cells (CECs) can be washed off by aqueous humor flow, resulting in poor adhesion of the cells onto the corneal tissue. A method has been developed to enhance the adhesion of injected CECs allowing successful corneal transplantation and repair of pathological dysfunctions. Previous studies have demonstrated that Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) signaling interferes with adhesion. Using rabbit cells, researchers cultivated CECs in the laboratory and injected them into the anterior chamber of rabbit eyes with damaged corneal endothelia. Based on the recovery of corneal endothelial function, it was found that when the cultivated cells were injected with the ROCK inhibitor Y-27632, the rabbit corneas regained complete transparency 48 hours after injection. In contrast, rabbit CECs injected without Y-27632 resulted in hazy and severely swollen corneas. No complications related to cell injection therapy were observed and the reconstructed corneal endothelium with Y-27632 exhibited normal hexagonal cell shape. This observation suggests that cell adhesion modified by ROCK inhibitors may be an effective treatment for human corneal endothelial disorders.