Efecto de las células mesenquimales sobre el segmento posterior del ojo en un modelo experimental de enfermedad de injerto contra huésped ocular

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation complication. Ocular involvement has been reported in 40-90% of patients, dry eye is the main complication. Posterior segment ocular disease has been reported in 12, 8% of patients who had been done an hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The causes of this posterior segment ocular diseases are unknown, the reasons may be ocular graft-versus-host disease (oGVHD), total body irradiation (TBI), and cyclosporine. On the other hand, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) extracted from bone marrow, could be useful in the treatment of corneal disease because of oGVHD, but it is very important to know if these cells can go toward the retina and make it get ill because of oGVHD treatment.
The aims of this thesis are on the one hand to evaluate, in an oGVHD animal model, the hypothetical posterior segment ocular diseases due to oGVHD, TBI or bone marrow cells transplantation. And, on the other hand to evaluate if the human MSC can go toward the retina after subconjunctival injection.
To generate the oGVHD animal model, BALB/C (H2d) mice received total body irradiation and an intravenous infusion of C57BL/6 allogeneic donor bone marrow cells with splenocytes. The degree of oGVHD was assessed by a scoring system. We studied the tear osmolarity. Human MSC were isolated from bone marrow cells of healthy donors. We administered a subconjunctival injection of MSC in mice. We carried out retinal immunohistochemistry analysis.
All mice that had received donor splenocytes exhibited clinical features of GVHD at lids, conjunctiva and cornea with a tear hymerosmolarity associated. There were not inflammatory signs and apoptosis in the retina. There were not changes in the neural cells, glial cells and vascular variation because of oGVHD. Nevertheless, there was an increment in the number of Iba1+ cells and morphology changes due to TBI and bone marrow transplantation. There were not MSC in the retina after subconjunctival injection.
Subconjunctival injection of CSM is a safe option to the cornea in oGVHD treatment because they do not go toward the retina. The changes in the retina are nonexistent or too mild to attract them.