Abstract
Presentation Description :
A complete lens can regenerate from cornea epithelial cells in the frog Xenopus. Historically, this process was described as one involving transdifferentiation of cornea epithelial cells. In this talk, evidence will be presented to show that these regenerated lenses actually arise from basal cornea stem cells and/or their highly proliferative progeny (the transit amplifying cells, TACs). Both central and peripheral (limbal) larval and adult cornea epithelial cells can differentiate into lens cells that express crystallins. During development a population of basal, label-retaining stem cells becomes localized to the limbus in the mature frog cornea. Data will also be presented showing that cornea stem cells and TACs express a wide variety of cornea stem cell markers. Finally, experiments will be described showing that certain signaling pathways must be attenuated to permit successful lens regeneration, including the retinoic acid and Wnt pathways.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.