Conjunctival reconstruction via enrichment of human conjunctival epithelial stem cells by p75 through the NGF‐p75‐SALL2 signaling axis

Severe conjunctival diseases can cause significant conjunctival scarring, which seriously limits eye movement and affects patients' vision. Conjunctival reconstruction remains challenging due to the lack of efficient methods for stem cells enrichment. This study indicated that p75 positive conjunctival epithelial cells (CjECs) were mainly located in the basal layer of human conjunctival epithelium and showed an immature differentiation state in vivo. The p75 strongly positive (p75++) CjECs enriched by immuno‐magnetic beads exhibited high expression of stem cell markers and low expression of differentiated keratins. During continuous cell passage cultivation, p75++ CjECs showed the strongest proliferation potential and were able to reconstruct the conjunctiva in vivo with the most complete structure and function. Exogenous addition of NGF promoted the differentiation of CjECs by increasing nuclear localization of SALL2 in p75++ CjECs while proNGF played an opposite role. Altogether, p75++ CjECs present stem cell characteristics and exhibit the strongest proliferation potential so can be used as seed cells for conjunctival reconstruction, and NGF‐p75‐SALL2 signaling pathway was involved in regulating the differentiation of CjECs.