Advanced materials for the expansion of endothelial progenitor cells
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Advanced materials for in vitro expansion of circulating endothelial progenitor cells for use in the treatment of diabetic retinopathy
IRAS ID
201447
Contact name
Hannah J Levis
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Liverpool Research Support Office
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Research Summary
Diabetic retinopathy is a common complication of diabetes. The retina is the light sensitive part at the back of the eye. It needs a constant blood supply to work effectively, which it receives through a network of tiny blood vessels. Diabetic retionpathy occurs when high blood sugar levels damage the blood vessels at the back of the eye. If this isn’t treated then it can lead to blindness. The high blood sugar levels in diabetics can cause these vessels to narrow, bleed or leak. There are certain cells, called endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) that are found in peripheral blood (blood which can be obtained from veins in the arms) and in high numbers in cord blood that have the potential to repair these damaged vessels. Our research aims to find new ways to grow large numbers of EPCs isolated from cord blood and peripheral blood in the laboratory so that they can be used to repair the damaged blood vessels in patients with diabetic retinopathy. We will be receiving cord blood from the Liverpool Women’s Research Tissue Bank (LWRTB) that has been collected after elective caesarean section so that we can isolate the EPCs. We will be recruiting throughout the life of the project and the number of cord blood samples collected will not exceed 150 during that time. We will also be recruiting healthy volunteers to donate peripheral blood and that number will not exceed 150 throughout the life of the project. The number of EPCs in cord blood is higher than in peripheral blood so investigating the optimal conditions for culture in this population would be preferable initially. We would like to be able to use patient's own blood cells to treat them, so we must also collect peripheral blood to best work out how we can acheive this.Summary of Results
This work was undertaken by researchers at the University of Liverpool and Staff at St Paul’s Eye Unit. NHS Research staff and the Ophthalmologist recruited and consented patients for the study, whilst all the sample processing and lab work was carried out in the Department of Eye and Vision Science at the University of Liverpool. Diabetes UK and St Paul’s Research Foundation funded this project.
People with diabetes (PWD) who were visiting the diabetic retinopathy (DR) clinic were provided information on the study and asked if they’d like to take part. We recruited 40 patients in total, and collected up to 50mls of blood from each patient. Patients who agreed to take part were grouped into 4 different severities of DR: pre-clinical, background, diffuse diabetic macular oedema and Ischaemic maculopathy. Four healthy age-matched controls were also recruited.We were unable to collect blood from 2 PWD, so in total 42 blood samples were used in this study.
This research was important to help us understand why blood vessels become unhealthy as diabetes progresses. We aimed to collect a special type of endothelial cell from blood, and grow these specialised cells in the lab and run tests to determine their health and ability to repair defects in the blood vessel walls. In the future, patient cells could be grown in the lab and delivered back to the patient as a cell therapy, to help repair blood vessels if their own endothelial cells become worn out.Other research groups have struggled to grow any endothelial cells collected from PWD, because they often have some dysfunction. However, in 19 (50%) of our PWD samples we observed cells growing, and 6 (15.8%) of these were successfully expanded in number and used/stored for experiments and analysis. We added these cells to a layer of blood vessel endothelial cells grown in the lab and they filled the gaps, suggesting they maintain their ability to fix damaged blood vessels. These results are promising and suggest these specialised endothelial cells could be used as a cell therapy in the future.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2
REC reference
17/NS/0071
Date of REC Opinion
17 Jul 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion