Cornea Classics: Identification of Antiangiogenic and Antiinflammatory Proteins in Human Amniotic Membranes.

The use of human amniotic membrane for treatment of ocular surface and corneal diseases gained enormous momentum in the late 1990s. Clinical observations already at that time indicated that amniotic membrane transplantation exerts both antiinflammatory and antiangiogenic properties. However, the precise molecular mechanisms of these beneficial effects were largely unknown. Hao and colleagues very elegantly demonstrated that both fresh and cryopreserved human amniotic membrane epithelial and mesenchymal cells contain numerous antiangiogenic and antiinflammatory factors.