Laboratory for Retinal Regeneration

The retina has been called the "approachable part of the brain", owing to its relatively simple structure and location near the body surface. For these reasons, it serves as a useful and experimentally amenable model of the central nervous system. Until very recently, it was thought that the retina was entirely incapable of regenerating in adult mammals, but we now know that at least new retinal neurons can be generated after being damaged. This has opened up new hope that the ability to regenerate neurons and even to reconstitute the neural network may be retained in the adult retina. We are now exploring the exciting prospect that, by transplanting cells from outside of the retina or by regeneration from intrinsic progenitor cells, it may be possible to restore lost function of damaged retinas in a day. Our goal is to study retinal regeneration based on both a strong foundation in basic research and a solid clinical evidence.

Research Subjects

• retinal cell transplantation
• induction of retinal cells from various stem/progenitor cells
• retinal regeneration by intrinsic retinal stem cells
• gene diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa
• relationship between photoreceptor death and environment in retinitis pigmentosa

Publications

1. Satoshi Nojima, et al.:
   "A point mutation in Semaphorin 4A associates with defective endosomal sorting and causes retinal degenerataion"
   Nature Communications. Volume:4, Article number: 1406 doi:10.1038/ncomms2420 (2013)
2. Takuya Kuroda, et al.:
   "Highly Sensitive In Virtro Methods for Detection of Residual Undifferentiated Cells in Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells Derived from Human iPS Cells"
   Plos ONE, 7(5), e37342 (2012)
3. Hosono K, et al.:
   "Two Novel Mutations in the EYS Gene Are Possible Major Causes of Autosomal Recessive Retinitis Pigmentosa in the Japanese Population"
   Plos One,7(2).e31036 (2012)
4. Okita K, et al.:
   "A more efficient method to generate integration-free human iPS cells"
   Nat Methods. 8(5) 409-12 (2011)
5. Jin Z B, et al.:
   "Modeling Pathogenesis of Retinal Degeneration Using Patient-derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells"
   Plos One,6(2).e17084 (2011)
6. Osakada F, et al.:
   "Wnt signaling promotes regeneration in the retina of adult mammals."
   Neurosci 27. 4210-9 (2007)
7. Ooto S, et al.:
   "Potential for neural regeneration after neurotoxic injury in the adult mammalian retina"
   Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 101. 13654-9 (2004)
8. Haruta M, et al.:
   "In vitro and in vivo characterization of pigment epithelial cells differentiated from primate embryonic stem cells"
   Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 45. 1020-5 (2004)
9. Haruta M, et al.:
   "Induction of photoreceptor-specific phenotypes in adult mammalian iris tissue"
   Nat Neurosci 4. 1163-4 (2001)
10. Osakada F, et al.:
    "Toward the generation of rod and cone photoreceptors from mouse, monkey and human embryonic stem cells."
    Nat Biotechnol 26. 215-24 (2008)