Immortalized retinal pigmentary epithelial cell lines and their applications

Abstract

The invention features immortalized retina-derived (retinal endothelial or retinal epithelial pigmentary) cell lines capable of being implanted in the retina and of carrying a therapeutic substance to the eye and to the central nervous system. Such lines can also be used as a model for studying blood central nervous system interfaces. These lines are derived from primary retinal cultures selected from the group consisting of primary retinal endothelial cells and primary retinal epithelial cells, comprise a nucleic acid fragment containing at least one immortalizing fragment of a heat-sensitive viral oncogene, which nucleic fragment is optionally associated with at least one selection gene, and have the morphological characteristics and at least the expression characteristics of the surface antigens of corresponding primary cultures.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.