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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Jul 19.
Published in final edited form as: Br J Ophthalmol. 2008 Sep;92(9):1269–1274. doi: 10.1136/bjo.2007.132431

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Expression of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and GDNF family receptor alpha-1 (GFRα-1) mRNA (A) evaluated by relative quantitative real-time PCR and the effect of recombinant human GDNF (rhGDNF, 50 ng/ml) in the primary human limbal epithelial cultures (B). Levels of GDNF and GFRα-1 mRNA transcripts were four- to 10-fold higher in limbal than in corneal epithelia (A1, n=8, compared with the corneal epithelium); both transcripts decreased more than 70% in the 90% confluent cultures and in the airlifted stratified limbal epithelial cultures (A2, n=5, compared with the 40% confluent cells). The number of colonies per dish at day 6 increased sixfold on the addition of 50 ng/ml rhGDNF (B1, n = 8, compared with the control group). Twenty hours after alkali burn was made in vitro (B2), GDNF significantly increased in vitro wound healing (B2, n = 8, compared with the control group). Although the effect of GDNF was smaller than that of epidermal growth factor (EGF), there was no significant difference between the two groups (Dunnett test, p>0.05). However, this effect of GDNF was blocked in the presence of GDNF neutralising antibody. *p<0.05; **p<0.01.