Fabrication of transplantable corneal epithelial and oral mucosal epithelial cell sheets using a novel temperature-responsive closed culture device.

Temperature-responsive culture surfaces make it possible to harvest transplantable carrier-free cell sheets. Here, we applied temperature-responsive polymer for polycarbonate surfaces with previously developed closed culture devices for an automated culture system in order to fabricate transplantable stratified epithelial cell sheets. Histological and immunohistochemical analyses and colony-forming assays revealed that corneal epithelial and oral mucosal epithelial cell sheets could be harvested with the temperature-responsive closed culture devices. The results were similar to those obtained using temperature-responsive culture inserts. These results indicate that the novel temperature-responsive closed culture device is useful for fabricating transplantable stratified epithelial cell sheets.