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Phenotypic and functional characterization of corneal endothelial cells during in vitro expansion

ABSTRACT: The advent of cell culture-based methods for the establishment and expansion of human corneal endothelial cells (CEnC) has provided an available source of transplantable corneal endothelium, with a significant potential to challenge the one donor-one recipient paradigm. However, concerns over cell state identity remain, and a comprehensive characterization of the cultured CEnC has not been performed. To this end, we compared two established CEnC culture methods by assessing cell function and characterizing the transcriptomic changes that occur during in vitro expansion. In confluent monolayers, low mitogenic culture conditions preserved corneal endothelial cell state identity better than culture in high mitogenic conditions. Expansion by continuous passaging induced replicative cell senescence. Transcriptomic analysis of the senescent phenotype identified a cell senescence signature distinct for CEnC. We identified activation of both classic and new cell signaling pathways that may be targeted to prevent senescence, a significant barrier to realizing the potential clinical utility of in vitro expansion.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE132204 | GEO | 2020/01/31

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Human corneal endothelial cells (CECs) are not able to proliferate or regenerate within the eye. However, limited in vitro expansion of primary human CECs has been demonstrated by several laboratories, including ours. Due to the nature of these primary cells, various culture conditions supporting the active proliferation of these cells also drives them towards an endothelial-to-mesenchymal transformation (EMT) into fibroblastic-like cells. The occurrence of such a phenomenon has been observed as early as after the first round of passage. However, it should be noted that the degree of such transformation is highly heterogeneous, due likely to donor variability. In the current study, propagation of primary human CECs was carried out using a novel dual media approach, where M4 (F99: HamM-bM-^@M-^Ys F12/M199, 5% FBS, 20 M-NM-<g/ml ascorbic acid, 1% ITS, 1% antibiotic/antimycotic and 10 ng/ml bFGF) was used to promote the proliferation of the CECs, and M5 (Endo: Human Endothelial-SFM, 5% FBS and 1% antibiotic/antimycotic), was used to stabilized these primary CECs when they reached 80% to 90% confluence.Primary cultures exposed to M5 were able to maintain the unique cellular structure of the human corneal endothelial cells and do not undergo EMT. In order to better understand the observed morphological changes at the molecular level following the switch from the proliferative M4 medium to the maintainance M5 medium, high throughput microarray analysis was performed on human CECs isolated from two donors and cultivated to the third passage. Subsequently, the global gene expression profile of the confluent human CECs expanded in M4 for the first (D17p) and second donor (D18p), were compared to the same set of the confluent human CECs maintained in M5 medium (D17m and D18m) for a further seven days. Primary human CECs were expanded using the dual media approach to the third passage. Total RNA obtained from confluent P3 human CECs samples grown in the proliferative M4 medium (D17p and D18p) were compared to the same set of primary cultures that were exposed to M5 for a further 7 days (D17m and D18m).

Project description:The corneal endothelium plays a primary role in maintaining corneal homeostasis and clarity, and must be surgically replaced with allogenic donor corneal endothelium in the event of visually significant dysfunction. However, a worldwide shortage of donor corneal tissue has led to a search for alternative sources of transplantable tissue. Cultured human corneal endothelial cells (HCEnC) have been shown to restore corneal clarity in experimental models of corneal endothelial dysfunction in animal models, but characterization of cultured HCEnC remains incomplete. To this end, we utilized next-generation RNA sequencing technology to compare the transcriptomic profile of ex vivo human corneal endothelium (evHCEnC) with that of primary HCEnC and HCEnC lines, and to determine the utility of cultured and immortalized corneal endothelial cells as models of in vivo corneal endothelium. Multidimensional analyses of the transcriptome datasets demonstrated that primary HCEnC have a closer relationship to evHCEnC than do immortalized HCEnC. Subsequent analyses showed that the majority of the genes specifically expressed in HCEnC (not expressed in ex vivo corneal epithelium or fibroblasts) demonstrated a marked variability of expression in cultured cells compared with evHCEnC. In addition, genes associated with either corneal endothelial cell function or corneal endothelial dystrophies were investigated. Significant differences in gene expression and protein levels were observed in the cultured cells compared with evHCEnC for each of the genes tested except for AGBL1 and LOXHD1, which were not detected by RNA-seq or qPCR. Our transcriptomic analysis suggests that at a molecular level primary HCEnC most closely resemble evHCEC and thus represent a viable therapeutic option for managing corneal endothelial dysfunction. Our findings also suggest that investigators should perform an assessment of the entire transcriptome of cultured HCEnC prior to determination of the potential clinical utility of the cultured HCEnC for the management of corneal endothelial cell failure. Transcriptomes from ex vivo corneal endothelium, primary cultures and three cell lines were compared. Three samples of each endothelial cell group were submitted for RNA sequencing for a total of 15 samples. The transcriptome for the ex vivo corneal endothelium was used as the reference (i.e., proxy for in vivo corneal endothelium). Transcript abundances for a subset of genes associated with corneal endothelial cell function or disease were validated with qPCR and western blot. Samples of ex vivo endothelium used for validation were independent replicates not used for RNA-sequencing.

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Phenotypic and functional characterization of corneal endothelial cells during in vitro expansion

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