establishment-clinically-relevant-ex-vivo-mock-cataract-surgery-model

Establishment of a Clinically Relevant <em>Ex Vivo</em> Mock Cataract Surgery Model for Investigating Epithelial Wound Repair in a Native Microenvironment

The major impediment to understanding how an epithelial tissue executes wound repair is the limited availability of models in which it is possible to ...

Thomas Jefferson University

We investigated an alternative pathway for emergence of the mesenchymal cells involved in epithelial sheet wound healing and a source of myofibroblasts that cause fibrosis. Using a mock cataract surgery model, we discovered a unique subpopulation of polyploid mesenchymal progenitors nestled in small niches among lens epithelial cells that expressed the surface antigen G8 and mRNA for the myogenic transcription factor MyoD. These cells rapidly responded to wounding of the lens epithelium with population expansion, acquisition of a mesenchymal phenotype, and migration to the wound edges where they regulate the wound response of the epithelium. These mesenchymal cells also were a principal source of myofibroblasts that emerged following lens injury and were responsible for fibrotic disease of the lens that occurs following cataract surgery. These studies provide insight into the mechanisms of wound-healing and fibrosis.

Unique precursors for the mesenchymal cells involved in injury response and fibrosis.

Src family tyrosine kinases (SFKs) are often coincidently expressed but few studies have dissected their individual functions in the same cell during development. Using the classical embryonic lens as our model, we investigated SFK signaling in the regulation of both differentiation initiation and morphogenesis, and the distinct functions of c-Src and Fyn in these processes.

Article	Year
Unique precursors for the mesenchymal cells involved in injury response and fibrosis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America\| PubMed ID: 20634425	2010
Distinct roles for N-Cadherin linked c-Src and fyn kinases in lens development. Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists\| PubMed ID: 23361870	2013

Brigid M. Bleaken

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