Figure 3.

In vitro cultured human umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) show endogenous expression of (A) PAX6, an ocular surface developmental marker [40] and a pleiotropic master regulator of eye development [41,42], (B) WNT7A, a key signaling molecule of the Wnt pathway which controls proliferation of human corneal epithelial stem cells [43], and (C) CK-8/18, an epithelial marker [44] under standard culture conditions. This indicates that the hUC-MSCs may possess inherent potential for corneal epithelial repair/regeneration. The human limbal and corneal epithelial cells were used as controls. The top panel shows DAPI staining, the middle panel shows antigen specific staining and the lower panel shows merged image of both DAPI and antigen specific staining in each of the three cell types, respectively. The specificity of the staining was determined by suitable isotype controls (data not shown). Bar size: 50 μm.