The present invention is directed to methods of repairing damaged or
diseased, specialized or differentiated tissue in mature animals,
particularly neuronal tissue such as retinas. In particular, the invention
relates to transplantation of adult, hippocampus-derived progenitor cells
into a selected neural tissue site of a recipient. These cells can
functionally integrate into mature and immature neural tissue. The
invention encompasses, in one aspect, repopulating a retina of a
dystrophic animal with neurons, by injecting clonally derived, adult
central nervous system derived stem cells (ACSC) derived from a healthy
donor animal into an eye of the dystrophic recipient. Herein disclosed is
the first successful and stable integration of clonally derived ACSC into
same-species but different strain recipients (e. g., Fischer rat-derived
adult hippocampal derived progenitor cells (AHPCs) into dystrophic RCS
rats). Surprisingly, AHPCs were also found to integrate successfully into
a xenogeneic recipient (e.g., rat AHPCs into the retina of dystropic rd-I
mice).
