An experimental study of transplantation of cultured mucosal epithelium.

In this study, cultured epithelium was formed using serially cultivated human oral mucosal cells and transplanted onto nude mice. The morphological changes of the epithelium were observed after transplantation. The grafting procedures of the cultured epithelium was a modification of Barrandon's method. With this procedure, the cultured epithelium was transplanted without external trauma or infection. The cultured epithelium took within 1 week and gradually increased its epithelial thickness. Until 4 weeks after grafting, the grafted epithelium formed normal mucosal epithelium composed of 7-10 epithelial cell layers. However, no keratinization of the epithelium was observed. On the other hand, dermislike connective tissue was observed beneath the grafted epithelium. These results suggest that the cultured mucosal epithelium can be successfully transplanted and form a normal mucosal epithelial layer.