An estimated 5-15% of people have problems with dry eyes, with symptoms including eye redness,\u00a0stinging,\u00a0or burning sensation, and\u00a0eye\u00a0fatigue.\u00a0Dry eye disease (DED) occurs when the eyes’ tear glands produce insufficient or poor-quality tears which can be due to allergy or autoimmune disease, hormonal changes, aging, etc.\u00a0When left untreated, DED can increase the risk of eye infections and abrasion damage to the ocular surface, which may impair vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0A process called autophagy,\u00a0which is needed to clear up a cell’s interior\u00a0from damaged proteins etc., is thought to be\u00a0compromised\u00a0in tear glands of people with DED.\u00a0To\u00a0understand the connection between DED and autophagy and to potentially\u00a0open up\u00a0new therapeutic avenues,\u00a0Sovan Sarkar and his team from the University of Birmingham, UK, have\u00a0generated\u00a0tear gland organoids\u00a0from stem cells,\u00a03D structures resembling human tear glands.\u00a0The work\u00a0was recently published in Stem Cell Reports.\u00a0These organoids\u00a0contained\u00a0the different cell types which build up human tear glands and\u00a0made\u00a0tear proteins\u00a0required\u00a0for eye lubrification and for the prevention of infections.\u00a0Interestingly,\u00a0when autophagy was disabled\u00a0in the organoids\u00a0using\u00a0a genetic tool, the cellular composition of the organoids was\u00a0disrupted,\u00a0the secretion of tear proteins was\u00a0reduced, and cell death was increased.\u00a0Pharmacological intervention with\u00a0nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN)\u00a0or melatonin had a beneficial effect in this model and helped to\u00a0prevent cell death and to\u00a0restore tear protein secretion in the autophagy-deficient organoids.<\/p>\n
Autophagy is essential for proper tissue development and organ function. Here, we provide genetic evidence that autophagy is required for glandular tissue development by using autophagy-deficient human embryonic stem cells<\/a> to generate tear glands with developmental and functional defects.”<\/p>\n Sovan Sarkar, University of Birmingham, UK<\/p>\n This new human stem cell-based tear gland model will be an accessible tool to study tear gland function and how it can be modulated to prevent or treat DED.\u00a0<\/p>\n Source:<\/p>\n International Society for Stem Cell Research<\/a><\/p>\n Journal reference:<\/p>\n