HISTOMORPHOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE CORNEA OF THE RAT FOLLOWING MONOCULAR EYELID CLOSURE

Year 2016, Volume: 10 Issue: 2, 87 - 93, 25.08.2016

Faith Bonareri Aseta Philip Maseghe Mwachaka Paul Ochieng Odula Adel Kamel Malek

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe structural changes in the cornea of the rat after monocular eyelid closure.
Methods: Twenty-six Rattus norvegicus male rats aged three months were used. The rats were randomly assigned into baseline (2), experimental (16) and control (8) groups. Unilateral eyelid closure was performed on the experimental animals by suture tarsorrhaphy. At experiment days 5, 10, 15 and 20, four rats from the experimental group and two rats from the control group were euthanized, their eyeballs harvested, and routine processing was done for paraffin embedding, sectioning and Masson’s trichrome staining. The photomicrographs were taken using a digital photomicroscope.
Results: In the closed eyes, there was a time-dependent reduction in the stratification of the corneal epithelium with subsequent disintegration, and an increase in distribution of stromal keratocytes while the corneal endothelial cells showed slight enlargement from squamous shape. The contralateral and control eyes did not exhibit any significant changes through the experimental period.
Conclusion: Monocular eyelid closure causes structural changes in the corneal epithelium, stroma and endothelium of the tarsorrhaphy eye. Therefore, tarsorrhaphy should not be prolonged due to risk of corneal diseases and diminution of vision as a result of the structural changes.

Keywords

cornea, eyelid closure, rat, tarsorrhaphy

References

• Qazi Y, Wong G, Monson B, Stringham J, Ambati BK. Corneal
• transparency: genesis, maintenance and dysfunction. Brain Res Bull
• ;81:198–210.
• Chhabra M. Oxygen transport through soft contact lens and cornea:
• lens characterization and metabolic modeling. ProQuest dissertations
• and theses 2007;69-03:1776.
• Beebe DC. Maintaining transparency: a review of developmental
• physiology and pathophysiology of two avascular tissues. Semin Cell
• Dev Biol 2008;19:125–33.
• Chhabra M, Prausnitz JM, Radke CJ. Modeling corneal metabolism
• and oxygen transport during contact lens wear. Optom Vis Sci
• ;86:454–66.
• Cosar CB, Cohen EJ, Rapuano CJ, Maus M, Penne RP, Flanagan
• JC, Laibson PR. Tarsorrhaphy: clinical experience from a cornea
• practice. Cornea 2001;20:787–91.
• Baum JL. The Castroviejo Lecture. Prolonged eyelid closure is a risk
• to the cornea. Cornea 1997;16:602–11.
• Labbé A, Liang H, Martin C, Brignole-Baudouin F, Warnet JM,
• Baudouin C. Comparative anatomy of laboratory animal corneas
• with a new-generation high-resolution in vivo confocal microscope.
• Curr Eye Res 2006;31:501–9.
• Williams DL. Ocular disease in rats: a review. Vet Ophthalmol
• ;5:183–91.
• Tachibana M, Kasukabe, T, Kobayashi Y, Suzuki T, Kinoshita S,
• Matsushima Y. Expression of estrogen receptor alpha and beta in
• the mouse cornea. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2000;41:668–70.
• Ladage PM, Ren DH, Petroll WM, Jester JV, Bergmanson JP,
• Cavanagh HD. Effects of eyelid closure and disposable and silicone
• hydrogel extended contact lens wear on rabbit corneal epithelial
• proliferation. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2003;44:1843–9.
• Yamamoto K, Ladage PM, Ren DH, Li L, Petroll WM, Jester JV,
• Cavanagh HD. Effect of eyelid closure and overnight contact lens
• wear on viability of surface epithelial cells in rabbit cornea. Cornea
• ;21:85–90.
• Pérez JG, Méijome JM, Jalbert I, Sweeney DF, Erickson P. Corneal
• epithelial thinning profile induced by long-term wear of hydrogel
• lenses. Cornea 2003;22:304–7.
• Allen TC, Cagle PT. Basic concepts of molecular pathology. Arch
• Pathol Lab Med 2008;132:1551–6.
• Sperandio S, Poksay K, de Belle I, Lafuente MJ, Liu B, Nasir J,
• Bredesen DE. Paraptosis: mediation by MAP kinases and inhibition
• by AIP-1/Alix. Cell Death Differ 2004;11:1066–75.
• Hoa N, Myers MP, Douglass TG, Zhang JG, Delgado C,
• Driggers L, Callahan LL, VanDeusen G, Pham JT, Bhakta N, Ge
• L, Jadus MR. Molecular mechanisms of paraptosis induction:
• Implications for a non-genetically modified tumor vaccine. PLoS
• One 2009;4:e4631.
• Wang Y, Xu K, Zhang H, Zhao J, Zhu X, Wang Y, Wu R. Retinal
• ganglion cell death is triggered by paraptosis via reactive oxygen
• species production: a brief literature review presenting a novel
• hypothesis in glaucoma pathology. Mol Med Rep 2014;10:1179–
• Wei T, Kang Q, Ma B, Gao S, Li X, Liu Y. Activation of
• autophagy and paraptosis in retinal ganglion cells after retinal
• ischemia and reperfusion injury in rats. Exp Ther Med 2015;9:
• –82.
• Benitez-del-Castillo JM, Lemp MA. Ocular surface disorders.
• London: JP Medical Publishers; 2013. p. 157–60.
• Langbein L, Grund C, Kuhn C, Praetzel S, Kartenbeck J,
• Brandner JM, Moll I, Franke WW. Tight junctions and compositionally
• related junctional structures in mammalian stratified
• epithelia and cell cultures derived therefrom. Eur J Cell Biol 2002;
• :419–35.
• Bennett ES, Weissman BA. Clinical contact lens practice.
• Philadelphia (PA): Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2005. p. 11–4.
• West-Mays JA, Dwivedi DJ. The keratocyte: corneal stromal cell
• with variable repair phenotypes. Int J Biochem Cell 2006;38:1625–31.
• Edelhauser HF. The balance between corneal transparency and
• edema. The Proctor lecture. Invest Ophtalmol Vis Sci 2006;47:1754–67.
• Wilson SE, Liu JJ, Mohan RR. Stromal-epithelial interactions in the
• cornea. Prog Retin Eye Res 1999;18:293–309.
• Yanoff M, Duker JS. Ophthalmology. 3rd ed. St Louis (MO): Mosby; 2008. p. 362.
• Meek KM, Leonard DW, Connon CJ, Dennis S, Khan S. Transparency, swelling and scarring in the corneal stroma. Eye (Lond) 2003;17:927–36.
• Moller-Pedersen T, Cavanagh HD, Petroll WM, Jester JV. Stromal
• wound healing explains refractive instability and haze development
• after photorefractive keratectomy: a 1-year confocal microscopic
• study. Ophthalmology 2000;107:1235–45.
• Magdum RM, Mutha N, Maheshgauri R. A study of corneal endothelial
• changes in soft contact lens wearers using non-contact specular
• microscopy. Medical Journal of Dr. D. Y. Patil University 2013;6:245–9.
• Chaudhuri Z, Vanathi M. Postgraduate ophthalmology. Vol 1. New
• Delhi: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers; 2012. p. 100.