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. 2005 Jul;89(7):841–846. doi: 10.1136/bjo.2004.054684

Figure 6.

Figure 6

 Immunostaining for α2-macroglobulin in corneas from 83 year old (top) and 22 year old (bottom) normal individuals (NH), lenticules of patients after epikeratoplasty for keratoconus (cases 5 and 6), and a cornea from a 70 year old keratoconus patient (KC). Arrow indicates Bowman’s layer of the host cornea. Arrowheads indicate keratocytes. The symbol ∧ indicates disruption of Bowman’s layer in the lenticule. Note that the intensity of the brown positive staining is decreased in the epithelium, keratocytes, and stromal lamellae in the lenticules, host corneas, and keratoconus specimens when compared to the normal corneas (chromogen 3-3’ diaminobenzidine). Image analysis confirmed significant differences in labelling intensity between normal control (epithelium: basal: 91 (2); wing: 98 (6); stroma cell: 51 (7); stromal ECM: 12 (1)); epikeratoplasty (case 5) (epithelium: basal: 29 (9) (p<0.00009); wing: 27 (4) (p = 0.00003); stromal cell in lenticule: 11 (13) (p = 0.0001); stromal ECM in lenticule: 5 (1) (p<0.0001); stromal cell in host: 15 (18) (p = 0.001); stromal ECM in host: 1.8 (2) (p<0.00004)) and keratoconus (epithelium: basal: 52 (5) (p<0.0000003); wing: 55 (5) (p<0.00000004); stromal cell:52 (14) p = 0.90; stromal ECM: 10 (1) (p = 0.03)).