Figure 3.

Triplex IHC for α-SMA (marker for myofibroblasts, red), vimentin (marker for mesenchymal cells, yellow), and keratocan (marker for keratocytes, green) in corneas at six weeks after irregular PTK and treatment with topical vehicle or losartan six times per day. (A) α-SMA staining tended to be greater in vehicle-treated corneas than LOS-treated corneas at six weeks after irregular PTK and treatment. The outlier no. 2 LOS cornea that formed an epithelial defect by four weeks developed far more myofibroblasts than other corneas in the losartan group. e is epithelium. Asterisk is artifactual dislocation of the epithelium that occurs during sectioning in many corneas after this injury. (B) Mean α-SMA intensity units measured in 200 pixel-width × 75 pixel-height rectangles on 300 DPI images. The difference between the two groups was highly significant if the outlier (green) losartan-treated cornea with an epithelial defect was excluded from the analysis and trended toward significance (P = 0.09) even if that cornea was included.