[Retracted] The Favorable Effect of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Treatment on the Antioxidant Protective Mechanism in the Corneal Epithelium and Renewal of Corneal Optical Properties Changed after Alkali Burns

Figure 3

The expression of MMP9 and iNOS in injured and stem cell treated corneas on day 15 after the injury. The expression of MMP9 (a) and iNOS (b) in untreated corneas without epithelium and in Nano-treated reepithelialized corneas (c, d) is high and decreases in Ad-MSCs treated corneas (g, h). In corneas treated with BM-MSCs (e, f) or LSCs (i, j) the expressions of MMP9 are low and the expression of iNOS is nearly absent, similar to the control cornea (k, l). The corneal sections are counterstained with hematoxylin. Scale bars: 50 μm. The expression of genes for iNOS (m) on day 15 after the injury was determined by real-time PCR. Each bar represents the mean ± SD from 6 individual corneas. The values with asterisks represent statistically significant () difference from untreated injured corneas.