Commenting on the finding, Nature Medicine said “Harnessing the powers of endogenous stem cells to repair tissue is a key goal of regenerative medicine because such an approach avoids possible immune rejection or tumor formation of exogenously added stem cells or their derived tissue. One such target of this approach is the eye, given that lens epithelial progenitor cells (LECs) have been described previously, and because promoting their proliferation could be a way to treat cataracts — the leading cause of blindness in the world.”

Professor Liu Yizhi and collaborators, achieved the functional lens regeneration using endogenous stem cells that allows for the treatment of human infants with congenital cataracts after 18 years’ study. This international team has isolated lens epithelial stem/progenitor cells (LECs) in mammals and shown that Pax6 and Bmi1 are required for LEC renewal. Working with healthy rabbits and macaques, the team perfected a surgical approach that uses a much smaller incision into the lens of the eye than is required in the current standard surgery, and that moves the point of the incision to the periphery of the lens. This leads to less tissue damage of the lens epithelia, which results in greater preservation of the LEC population within it and the natural regeneration of the lens over time. This approach, when translated to the clinic on 12 children with pediatric cataracts, has proved that lenses could be regenerated in humans using minimally invasive surgery with the incidence of visual axis opacification after surgery decreased by more than 20 times. The novel findings demonstrate a novel treatment strategy for cataracts and provide a new model for tissue regeneration using endogenous stem cells. The original research paper was published in the journal Nature 531, 323–328, 2016.

The article is available online: 

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v22/n12/full/nm1216-1374.html