Ritchey Eric R, Code Kimberly, Zelinka Christopher P, Scott Melissa A, Fischer Andy J
College of Optometry, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
Mol Vis. 2011;17:2440-54. Epub 2011 Sep 21.
The cornea is the major refractive component of the eye and serves as a barrier to the external environment. Understanding how the cornea responds to injury is important to developing therapies to treat vision disorders that affect the integrity and refractive properties of the cornea. Thus, investigation of the wound healing responses of the cornea to injury in a cost-effective animal model is a valuable tool for research. This study characterizes the wound healing responses in the corneas of White Leghorn chicken.
Linear corneal wounds were induced in post-natal day 7 (P7) chicks and cellular proliferation, apoptosis and regulation of structural proteins were assessed using immunohistochemical techniques. We describe the time course of increased expression of different scar-related markers, including vimentin, vinculin, perlecan and smooth muscle actin.
We find evidence for acute necrotic cell death in the corneal region immediately surrounding cite of incision, whereas we failed to find evidence of delayed cell death or apoptosis. We find that the neuronal re-innervation of SV2-positive axon terminals within the corneal stroma and epithelium occurs very quickly after the initial scarring insult. We describe an accumulation of cells within the stroma immediately underlying the scar, which results, at least in part, from the local proliferation of keratocytes. Further, we provide evidence for scar-induced accumulations of CD45-positive monocytes in injured corneas.
We conclude that the chick cornea is an excellent model system in which to study wound healing, formation of scar tissue, and neuronal re-innervation of sensory endings.
角膜是眼睛的主要屈光成分，也是抵御外部环境的屏障。了解角膜如何对损伤作出反应对于开发治疗影响角膜完整性和屈光特性的视力障碍的疗法至关重要。因此，在一种经济有效的动物模型中研究角膜对损伤的伤口愈合反应是一种有价值的研究工具。本研究对来航鸡角膜的伤口愈合反应进行了特征描述。
在出生后第7天（P7）的雏鸡中诱导线性角膜伤口，并使用免疫组织化学技术评估细胞增殖、凋亡和结构蛋白的调节。我们描述了不同瘢痕相关标志物（包括波形蛋白、纽蛋白、基底膜聚糖和平滑肌肌动蛋白）表达增加的时间进程。
我们在切口部位紧邻的角膜区域发现急性坏死性细胞死亡的证据，而未发现延迟性细胞死亡或凋亡的证据。我们发现角膜基质和上皮内SV2阳性轴突终末的神经元重新支配在最初的瘢痕形成损伤后很快发生。我们描述了瘢痕下方基质内细胞的积聚，这至少部分是由角膜细胞的局部增殖导致的。此外，我们提供了瘢痕诱导损伤角膜中CD45阳性单核细胞积聚的证据。
我们得出结论，雏鸡角膜是研究伤口愈合、瘢痕组织形成和感觉末梢神经元重新支配的优秀模型系统。
