VIP pretreatment-promoted long-term survival of CE cells in corneal cups that have been briefly exposed to severe oxidative stress. Sixty four h after recovering in the growth medium in corneal cups from injury induced by exposure to 1.4 mM H2O2 (30 min), CE cells that have remained attached in the corneal cups were quantified by genomic DNA. VIP, in a concentration-dependent manner increased the numbers of attached CE cell. Relative amounts of genomic DNA derived from attached CE cells in corneal cups that have been pretreated with 0 (control), 10−10, 10−8, and 10−6 M VIP were (mean±sem; [p value in VIP-pretreated vs control]) 100± 9 %, 144± 26 % (p=0.09), 190±23% (p =0.002), and 166±18 % (p=0.004) in 7, 9, 8, and 7 corneal cups, respectively. The data were combined from three separate experiments. Difference among treatments with varying VIP concentrations was significant (P=0.045, ANOVA). The amount of CE cell DNA in each corneal cup was normalized against the average value of those found in control corneal cups in each of the three separate experiments and the values were given on Y-axis.