Cornea Organoid Modeling Service

Fig.1 Bright field images of 4 translucent cornea organoids.¹

Your cornea is the clear outer shield at the very front of your eye. It has two main jobs: protecting the eye from the outside world and handling most of the light focusing – about two-thirds of it – so you can see sharply. It's built in layers. An outer skin, the epithelium, keeps itself fresh using stem cells from the edge. Beneath that is the stroma, the thickest part, made of neatly arranged collagen and special cells called keratocytes that maintain this structure. Lining the inside is a single layer, the endothelium, which works hard pumping out fluid to keep the cornea from swelling up. These layers have to work together perfectly to keep the cornea transparent. If injury, genetics, or infection damage these layers, the cornea can cloud over, which is unfortunately a major reason people lose sight around the world. This pushes the need for good lab models to study these problems.

Here at Creative Biolabs, we develop and use 3D cell models to help advance eye research. We offer Cornea Organoid Modeling Services, creating miniature cornea-like structures in the lab from human cells. These aren't just flat cells in a dish; they grow into multi-layered tissues that contain the key cell types – epithelial, stromal, and endothelial – found in your own cornea. We use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), as the starting point to build these organoids. This approach gives researchers a valuable tool to investigate how corneal diseases develop, test potential drugs, and work on new ways to repair corneal damage.

Key Features

Our corneal organoids, self-organizing 3D structures derived from human iPSCs, offer a powerful solution. These advanced models recapitulate key features of corneal development and structure, including:

• Multilayered Architecture: Developing distinct epithelial, stromal, and endothelial-like cell populations arranged in layers.
• Cellular Diversity: Harboring various corneal cell types that express relevant markers characteristic of their in vivo counterparts.
• Extracellular Matrix Production: Demonstrating the capacity to produce and organize corneal ECM components, including collagen fibrils.
• Human & Disease Relevance: Enabling the study of human corneal development, disease mechanisms using patient-derived cells, and testing of therapeutics in a highly relevant context.

Fig.2 Characterization of ECM and crystallin proteins within corneal organoids.¹

Creative Biolabs' Expertise in Corneal Organoid Technology

Creative Biolabs provides end-to-end services, leveraging optimized protocols to generate robust and reproducible corneal organoids for your research needs. Our comprehensive offerings include:

1. Organoid Generation & Customization:

• iPSC Derivation and Banking: Sourcing and expert handling of human iPSCs, including reprogramming from patient samples (skin, blood) and maintenance of high-quality control and disease-specific lines.
• Custom Organoid Development: Generation of corneal organoids using established, reproducible protocols involving sequential differentiation steps. We can adapt protocols to target specific developmental timelines or enrich certain cell populations based on project goals.
• Healthy & Disease Models: Creation of organoids from both healthy donors and patients with specific corneal conditions (e.g., Aniridia-Associated Keratopathy, genetic dystrophies) for comparative studies and mechanistic investigations.
• Scalable Production: Efficient, large-scale generation capabilities to support high-throughput applications like drug screening.

2. Comprehensive Characterization Suite:

• Morphological & Histological Analysis: Detailed assessment of organoid size, shape, transparency, and internal structure using brightfield microscopy and H&E staining of sections.
• Immunofluorescence (IF) Profiling: Extensive marker analysis via IF staining to confirm cell identity, localization, and differentiation status across epithelial (KRTs, p63, PAX6, etc.), stromal (KERA, LUM, DCN, Collagens, etc.), and endothelial layers (COL8A1/2, AQP1, TAGLN, ZO-1, etc.).
• Ultrastructural Analysis (TEM): Examination of ECM organization at the nanoscale, visualizing collagen fibril assembly, diameter, and lamellar arrangement.
• Metabolomic Analysis: Untargeted GC-MS profiling to identify metabolic signatures, pathway alterations, and potential biomarkers associated with disease states or drug treatments within the organoid models.

3. Putting Corneal Organoids to Work:

• Modeling Corneal Diseases: Get a closer look at how inherited or acquired corneal conditions really affect cells. Using organoids made from patient iPSCs lets you directly study the impact of specific genetic defects, like those in Aniridia-Associated Keratopathy (AAK), Fuchs' dystrophy, or Keratoconus. You can track how the disease might progress at a cellular and molecular level.
• Testing Drugs and Checking Safety: Use these human-like 3D cornea models to see if potential drugs are effective or if they might be toxic to corneal tissues. It's a relevant system for early screens before moving into more complex testing.
• Exploring Corneal Repair and New Therapies: Organoids support research aimed at finding ways to repair damaged corneas. This includes testing gene therapy ideas, perhaps even in patient-specific models, or looking into whether cells grown in these organoids could eventually be used for transplantation. You can also use them to find and study potential progenitor cells.
• Understanding How Corneas Develop and Work: Investigate the basic steps of human corneal formation. Look at how the different corneal cells signal to each other, how they build the extracellular matrix, or how they respond to various stimuli within this controlled 3D setting.

Our Streamlined Project Workflow

Reference

1. Foster, James W et al. "Cornea organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells." Scientific reports vol. 7 41286. 27 Jan. 2017, doi:10.1038/srep41286. Distributed under Open Access License CC BY 4.0 without modification.