Eye-solated Protection

Our delicate and essential central nervous system (CNS) is protected by the blood-brain barrier. While this shields our brains and more from outside threats, it also blocks out useful tools like circulating immune cells. That being said, our CNS is still protected by specialised immune cells called microglia but where they originate is a topic of some debate. By mimicking the development of the human eye (a part of our CNS) in a dish in the lab, guiding induced pluripotent stem cells along the path to retinal cells, researchers revealed that microglia-like cells that would provide the retina with immune protection also evolve in the culture (shown by green staining). This shows that microglia emerge naturally and locally to the eye, and possibly other organs too, to overcome this barrier, and interestingly without being connected to any blood system either.

Written by Sophie Arthur

Sophie Arthur

former Science Communications Officer MRC LMS

Formerly a stem cell biologist, Sophie has since moved into science communication working at the MRC LMS. She also writes an award winning science and education blog Soph talks science.

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• Image from work by Nobuhiko Shiraki and colleagues
• Department of Ophthalmology, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Stem Cell Reports, February 2022