Insight into induced pluripotent stem cells in retinal diseases

BACKGROUND: Retinal diseases are caused by damage or apoptosis of the retinal cells and lack of ideal treatment. Induced pluripotent stem cells have self-renewal ability and differentiation potential. A new potential source from which to produce stem cells as a therapeutic platform for the treatment of retinal diseases and avoid ethics issues is the research focus currently. OBJECTIVE: To review recent advancement of induced pluripotent stem cells and the potential utility for retinal diseases. METHODS: The first author searched related articles published from 2006 to 2011 by computer retrieval in PubMed database using the keywords of "induced pluripotent stem cells, retinal, photoreceptor, retinal pigment epithelium, retinal ganglion cell" in English. Finally, totally 42 papers were involved. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Induced pluripotent stem cells can be induced to differentiate into retinal cells which have a possibility to be used as donor cells for transplantation therapies. Patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells can be used as disease models for mechanistic studies and drug screening. It is a promising therapy for retinal degenerative diseases. However, some problems still remain, such as risk of teratoma formation and low efficiency of somatic cells to be successfully induced into induced pluripotent stem cells. It still requires further more studies.