Vasoformative properties of normal and hypoxic retinal tissue.

By cannulating the stroma of rabbit corneae, and introducing extracts of retina and vitreous from newborn kittens subjected to vaso-obliterative doses of oxygen, an attempt was made to test the hypothesis that ischaemic retinal tissue releases a factor with vasoformative properties. It was found that, although retino-vitreal extracts from the test animals elicited a positive response in just over half the experiments, the degree of corneal vascularisation provoked by extracts from intact control animals was only marginally less. Consequently our findings do not permit any definite answer regarding the existence of a specific factor responsible for the proliferation of new vessels on the retinal surface in states associated with retinal hypoxia.