Morphological and functional vitreous body equivalents

The vitreous body has very important physiological functions, such as support, refracti on and cellular barriers. Although many artificial liquid or gelatinoid vitreous substitutes, including silicone oil, heavy silicone oil and hydrogels, have been injected into eyes after vitrectomy surgery, they cannot finely mimic the morphology and physiology of human vitreous body and can induce severe complications. We had proposed a new strategy to fabricate a vitreous substitute by a novel foldable capsular vitreous body (FCVB) and found that it was a very good replacement for closely mimicking the morphology and restoring the main physiological function of the rabbit vitreous body, without the obvious complications commonly induced with traditional silicone oil. It may be a novel alternative to silicone oil and will make vitrectomy surgery simpler and as effective as current intraocular lens implantation surgeries.