Long-term survival of bone marrow-derived retinal nerve cells in the retina.

Recently, we have demonstrated that bone marrow stem cells can differentiate into retinal nerve cells. In the present study, we show a new and efficient strategy for transplanting bone marrow stem cells into the retina. When bone marrow stem cells were injected into the vitreous cavity of untreated eyes, only very few cells were found in the retina 2 weeks after injection. In contrast, when laser photocoagulation was performed just before the injection of bone marrow stem cells, a large number of the injected cells survived 2 weeks after injection and the cells expressed neural cell-specific or retinal nerve cell-specific antigens. Moreover, we still detected bone marrow stem cell-derived retinal nerve cells in the retina 1 year after injection in the retina.