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Primordium Of An Artificial Bruch's Membrane Made Of Nanofibers For Engineering Of Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cell Monolayers, Patrick Warnke, Mohammad Alamein, Stuart Skabo, Sebastien Stephens, Robert Bourke, Peter Heiner, Qin Liu

Qin Liu

Transplanted Retinal Pigment Epithelium(RPE) cells hold promise for treatment of Age-related Macular Degeneration(AMD) and Stargardt Disease(SD), but it is conceivable that the degenerated host Bruch's membrane(BM) as a natural substrate for RPE might not optimally support transplanted cell survival with correct cellular organization. We fabricated novel ultrathin 3-dimensional(3D) nanofibrous membranes from Collagen type I and poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) by an advanced clinical-grade needle-free-electrospinning process. The nanofibrillar 3D networks highly mimicked the fibrillar architecture of the native inner collagenous layer of human BM. Human RPE cells grown on our nanofibrous membranes bore striking resemblance to native human RPE. They exhibited a …