Mesenchymal Stem Cells as a possible therapy in experimentally induced retinal damage in albino rat. Histological study

Abstract

Blindness can result from a number of inherited retinal and retinal-neuronal degenerative diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa and age related macular degeneration. No effective therapies have yet been developed to prevent or treat these degenerative processes. Stem cell based therapy has been considered, but effective neural integration and survival of the differentiated cells have not been reported. Continuous light exposure for prolonged periods was proved to affect the retinal cells and led to degenerative changes and even loss of photoreceptors. In this study, we induced retinal degeneration by continuous fluorescent light exposure and examined the retinal layers after light exposure to detect retinal damage. At the same time, we examined the possible therapeutic role of stem cells on these degenerative changes.