Streaming conjunctiva.

BACKGROUND

Epithelial proliferation is linked with cell displacement. When a cell divides, one of its progeny replaces the dividing ancestor and the other is displaced into a more remote location that has to be vacated first by peripheral cells. As cells are neither pushed nor pulled in a mechanical sense, and since they do not move by their own means, this displacement is best regarded as streaming. The purpose of the present study was to measure epithelial cell streaming in adult rat conjunctiva.

METHODS

Twenty-seven female adult rats were injected i.p. with 18.5 KBq [3H]-thymidine/g body weight, specific activity 185 GBq/mMol. Three rats were killed at different times up to 28 d. Eyes and eyelids were removed in one piece, cut along the pupillary-optic nerve line into 5-microns-thick sections, and prepared for autoradiography. In each eye, the entire upper conjunctiva extending from limbus to the palpebral muco-cutaneous junction was scanned with an ocular micrometer grid. The limbus served as point of origin. The x, y coordinate of each nucleus with two grains or more and its grain content were recorded.

RESULTS

One hour after labeling, labeled cells were spread evenly along the basal layer. Cells of the upper layers were not labeled. As time passed by, labeled cells in the fornix became more abundant, while in the limbus and palpebral margin, their frequency declined. Labeled cells streamed from the limbus and palpebral muco-cutaneous junction to the fornix. Bulbar conjunctival epithelia streamed at a velocity of 13.2 microns/day. Epithelia in the palpebral conjunctiva streamed at a velocity of 11.8 microns/day. At the same time cells streamed from the basal layer to the epithelial surface at a velocity of 0.4 microns/day. Generation time was 3.9 days.

CONCLUSIONS

Bulbar and palpebral conjunctivae are two independent cell kinetic systems that originate in two stem cell regions, one in the limbus and the other in the muco-cutaneous junction. Each system is made of two compartments, a progenitor where cells proliferate, and a compartment of non proliferating end cells. Progenitors created in the first, enter the second and turn into end cells. Ultimately they die in the fornix. The undetermined limbus stem cell generates two epithelial cell lines, a corneal and a conjunctival.