The human cornea requires a smooth, transparent, robust and renewable surface to maintain its key optical and protective functions. The corneal epithelium is maintained by a local population of “stem cells”, which although not truly pluripotent, are capable of self-regeneration by asymmetric division. These cells are located at the limbus the region where the conjunctiva-covered sclera meets th...

PRECANCEROUS melanosis of the surface epithelium is histologically analogous to Bowen's disease (intra-epithelial epithelioma) in that both are forms of carcinoma in situ, which sooner or later invade the subepithelial tissue, giving rise to typical malignant melanoma on the one hand and epidermoid carcinoma on the other. It has therefore been suggested by Ashton (1957a) that the term " intra-e...

Ulcers and erosions of the corneal epithelium, as well as delays in resurfacing of the cornea after wounding, are major causes of ocular morbidity and visual loss in diabetes. To study whether intervention by the opioid antagonist naltrexone (NTX; 30 mg/kg, twice daily) can restore reepithelialization in diabetic cornea, we induced diabetes in rats by intravenous injection of 65 mg/kg streptozo...

Marginal infiltrates arise from a wide variety of causes and according to the recent literature occur most commonly in association with chronic staphylococcal blepharitis. Marginal infiltrates often have a crescent form or coalesce to form a complete ring concentric to the limbus. On the other hand, the well-formed manifestation of an immunological process in the cornea, the so-called immunolog...

According to the concept of keratin pairing defined by tissue coexpression, a 55-kD/64-kD keratin pair is a marker of "corneal-type" differentiation. Intermediate filament (IF)-enriched preparations from guinea pig and bovine corneal epithelium were analyzed, and a rabbit antiserum was generated against a 55-kD polypeptide enriched in these preparations. This antiserum generated a typical IF-li...

Pterygium is characterized by the thickening of the bulbar conjunctiva and the invasion of the cornea from the sclerocorneal limbus to the central portion of the cornea. Pterygium produces corneal deformation, which extends toward the central portion of the cornea. The visual disorders depend on the corneal extent. The treatment goal is the removal of the corneal and conjunctival portion of the...

The paracellular permeability of normal rabbit cornea and conjunctiva was studied in vivo and in vitro. After intravenous administration, horseradish peroxidase was found to percolate to the intercellular space of conjunctival epithelia and was restricted by the tight junctions of the superficial epithelium. Only minimal tracer was present in the limbus and cornea. The difference between cornea...

patienit got the largest subconjunctival haematoma I have ever seen: at the end of the operation it stood up round the lower and inner part of the cornea, looking very much like a kidney with the hilum at the limbus. Before bandaging the eye I tapped this haematoma, with a cut from a pair of scissors. Recovery was tunieventful and the case left hospital at the end of the month. Tested in out-pa...

BACKGROUND A pterygium is a fibro-vascular, wing shaped encroachment of the conjunctiva on to the cornea. The prevalence rates ranges from 0.7 to 31% among different populations and also influenced by age, race, and exposure to solar radiations. Ultraviolet light-induced damage to the limbal stem cell barrier with subsequent conjunctivalisation of the cornea is the currently accepted aetiology ...

We have recently demonstrated that the keratin K3 gene, which is active in the suprabasal human corneal epithelium, is missing in the genome of the mouse. We show that a normal K3 gene exists in a wide variety of mammals while in rodents the gene is converted to a pseudogene with a very strong sequence drift. The availability of K5-/- mice provides a unique opportunity to investigate type-speci...