A group of researchers from the American University of Wisconsin in Madison, led by David Gamm and Jason Meyer, reported on the successful receipt of several types of light-receiving retina cells from adult skin cells, ScienceDaily reports citing the issue of the National Labor Proceeding Monday Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Skin cells were processed, turning them into pluripotent (stem) cells, from which various tissues can be formed - such are the cells of the human embryo five days after fertilization. Then scientists managed to cause the degeneration of stem cells into retinal cells, related to the nerve tissue.

As a result, cells were obtained that perform a visual function, that is, converting the light incident on them into electrical nerve impulses.

The development of cells obtained in the course of the experiment, according to the researchers, was very similar to the natural process of formation of retinal cells. Taking into account the fact that the whole process takes place in laboratory vessels, and the initial cells are extremely unlike the embryonic ones, of which the retina develops in the embryo, such similarity, scientists note, is "quite striking".

This similarity should help researchers move from studying retinal development in mice, toads and flies to using human tissues in their work.

The achievement of American scientists will restore lost vision in patients whose ophthalmic diseases are associated with retinal lesions.

In the short term, the use of technology to study eye diseases and preclinical trials of drugs that should act on the retina.

In particular, the researchers intend to engage in the cultivation of retinal cells from the skin of people suffering from hereditary eye diseases. To repeat the embryonic development of the retina in these cases means to directly see the mechanisms of the development of such diseases.

Medicinform. Net.

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