The Changes of Marginal Epithelial Cells in Corneal Wound Healing

ABSTRACT

The changes of marginal epithelial cells in corneal wound healing were observed in a rabbit. The randomly assigned three eyes in the rabbits were extracted at first, third, and eighteenth day after full thickness epithelial removal, then observed under the electronmicroscope. At the 1st and 3rd day ,the thickness of the epithelium at the wound margin was reduced at the leading edge. These flattened epithelial cells showed ruffling and folding of the plasma membrane near free edge to form filopodia or lamellipodia processes, extending onto wound surface. Cytoskeletons reorganized and rearranged in leading edge. Basement membrane of the wound was relatively intact, but on which cellular debris were observed, and cell migration undergone and hemidesmosomes developed incompletely. In eighteenth day, basal cell recovered original cylindric shape, cytoskeletons was originally redistributed in cytoplasm after migratory phase, and hemidesmosome developed completely.