Advances in Retinal Stem Cell Biology

Tremendous progress has been made in recent years to generate retinal cells from pluripotent cell sources. These advances provide hope for those suffering from blindness due to lost retinal cells. Understanding the intrinsic genetic network in model organisms, like fly and frog, has led to a better understanding of the extrinsic signaling pathways necessary for retinal progenitor cell formation in mouse and human cell cultures. This review focuses on the culture methods used by different groups, which has culminated in the generation of laminated retinal tissue from both embryonic and induced pluripotent cells. The review also briefly describes advances made in transplantation studies using donor retinal progenitor and cultured retinal cells.