Abstract
Purpose: :
To evaluate and compare the cellular redox state of cultured human endothelial cells from peripheral and central cornea.
Methods: :
Corneal endothelial cells from fresh banked human donor tissue not suitable for transplantation were harvested from central and peripheral cornea and cultured on collagen I or poly-D-lysine. Cellular autofluorescence images were obtained using a Zeiss inverted microscope (Thornwood, NY, Axiovert 200M) on day 2. The redox fluorometric ratio (inversely proportional to metabolic rate) was calculated as the net value of fluorescence from the DAPI channel divided by the net value of fluorescence from FITC channel after subtraction of backgrounds.
Results: :
The cellular redox ratio was 2.14 ± 0.48 in central and 1.33 ± 0.19 in peripheral cells in poly-D-lysine coating plates and 1.76 ± 0.09 in central and 1.67 ± 0.28 in peripheral cells in collagen coating plates. The cells from central cornea exhibited significantly higher redox ratios than cells from the periphery in poly-D-lysine coating dishes (p=0.010), but were not significantly different in collagen coating dishes (p=0.507).
Keywords: cornea: endothelium • mitochondria • cornea: basic science