They might also come up with a way to select the right
cells out
of a mixed
population; Anand Swaroop, an ophthalmology researcher at the University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor, is working on a way to identify and weed out the
photoreceptor cells by focusing on proteins present on
cell surfaces.
A
population of these
cells forms a layer deep to the
photoreceptors, where they contain intracellular pigment granules and appear superficially like an extra RPE layer, even though they do not express at least two characteristic RPE proteins.