Sphere-forming corneal cells repopulate dystrophic keratoconic stroma: Implications for potential therapy

Figure 1 Estimated fold differences in expression of proliferation, stem cell and epithelial and stromal cell markers in sphere-seeded tissue sections at day 14. Expression of stem cell markers: ATP-binding cassette, sub-family G member 2, ATP binding cassette subfamily B member 5, tumour protein p63, transcript variant 1, N-terminal isoform, tumour protein p63, transcript variant 1, C-terminal isoform α, limbal niche marker Notch1, proliferation marker proliferating cell nuclear antigen, mesenchymal cell marker vimentin, adhesion molecules integrin subunit α3 and β1, myofibroblast marker alpha smooth muscle actin, epithelial markers laminin α1 and keratin 3, keratocyte marker keratocan, collagen type I, alpha 1 chain and collagen type I, alpha 2 chain genes in sphere-seeded normal and keratoconic 10 μm en face decellularised central corneal stromal tissue sections. Spheres were derived from two human donors and expression data at days 0 and 14, normalised to reference genes β-actin, glycreraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, glucuronidase beta, hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase 1, peptidylprolyl isomerase A and β2-microglobulin. Data is expressed as estimated fold difference between day 14 and day 0 based on raw data and plotted as the natural logarithm mean differences in fold expression ± standard deviation.