Uyarılmmış pluripotent kök hücreler kullanılarak lakrimal bezin geliştirilmesi

Lacrimal gland secretes tear fluid, which moistens and protects the eye surface. Lacrimal gland deficiency related dry eye disease causes discomfort and can lead to inflammation, infection and even vision loss. The common treatment method is artificial tears however they do not contain the biologically active components of real tear and do not offer a cure. Human induced pluripotent stem cells harbor the potential to differentiate into all three germ layers and thus can be employed to construct a 3-dimensional functional lacrimal gland tissue in vitro. During development, interaction between periocular mesenchyme and conjunctival epithelium gives rise to the lacrimal gland. The aim of this thesis is to differentiate human induced pluripotent stem cells into lacrimal gland tissue. We hypothesize that human induced pluripotent stem cells can give rise to functional lacrimal gland and the tear proteins secreted from this construct can offer an alternative for artificial tears used in dry eye disease. For this purpose, different approaches have been investigated. The differentiation processes were monitored with cell marker expression in the RNA and protein level. Results demonstrate that extended culture of multi zonal ocular cells spontaneously formed 3-dimensional functional lacrimal gland mimicries. To our knowledge, this is the first functional lacrimal gland construct reported containing both tissue specific epithelial and mesenchymal cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells.