Research Article

Human Umbilical Cord-Mesenchymal Stem Cells Survive and Migrate within the Vitreous Cavity and Ameliorate Retinal Damage in a Novel Rat Model of Chronic Glaucoma

Figure 3

Injection of Tenon’s capsule fibroblasts induced slight eye enlargement and optic nerve injury. In both the COH and COH+human umbilical cord-mesenchymal stem cell (hUC-MSC) groups, the right eyes served as treated groups and the fellow eyes served as untreated controls. (a) Slight expansion of the right eyeball, with axial elongation compared to the left eyeball, was clearly visible in macroscopic view at 8 weeks. (b) Quantitative statistics of the anteroposterior axis of eyeball in Figure 2(b). . for each group. (c) Toluidine blue staining images of optic nerve cross-sections from control eyes and fibroblast-injected right eyes. Intact optic nerve showed homogeneity of the staining in the control group (A, C), whereas less-stained areas indicate nerve alteration in the treated group (B, D). A, B: low magnification; C, D: high magnification. Scale bar: 100 μm. COH: chronic ocular hypertension model; COH+hUC-MSC: intravitreal hUC-MSC transplantation in the chronic ocular hypertension model. (d) Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images confirm degenerating optic nerve axons. Compared to the control group, the COH group induced by Tenon’s capsule fibroblasts had extensive vacuoles (asterisk) and degenerated axons (arrows) in optic nerve. Scale bar: 2 μm.
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