Poster #055
Wnt-5b ameliorates diabetic corneal epithelial wound healing and stem cells
Mentors: Shah, Ruchi & Ljubimov, Alexander
Diabetes affects the cornea, causing impaired wound healing and stem cell dysfunction. We found reduced Wnt-5b expression in diabetic cornea by single-cell RNA sequencing and protein analyses. Wnt-5b appears to be important for cell migration, stem cell maintenance, and tissue repair. We investigated Wnt-5b effects on wound healing and stem cell protein marker expression in human diabetic limbal epithelial cells (LEC). Immunostaining and Western blot confirmed diabetes-reduced Wnt-5b expression. Wnt-5b treatment (200 ng/mL) did not influence wound healing in non-diabetic LEC but enhanced wound healing by 1.74-fold (p<0.05) at 24h in diabetic LEC. Accordingly, transfection of non-diabetic LEC with WNT5B siRNA significantly delayed wound healing. This may be in part due to improved stem cell function, as observed by the increase in putative limbal epithelial stem cell (LESC) markers (K15, K17). Thus, Wnt-5b is a new diabetic marker that can accelerate corneal epithelial wound healing and improve LESC phenotype.