Figure 5.

DAPI staining of the control and acrolein-exposed cornea sections showing nuclear staining/counts in the vapor-exposed (1 and 3 min) and topically exposed eyes (1 and 5 min) at day 28. Vapor exposure led to the loss of epithelial and stromal keratocytes in the 1-min exposure, which increased further in the 3-min exposed cornea. Similar observations were made in the corneas after topical treatment, except for the recovery of corneal epithelial cells in the 1-min exposed group and the mild recovery of epithelial cells and increased migration of inflammatory cells in the 5-min topical acrolein exposure group. n = 6 rabbit eyes in each group. All images were taken at 100× magnification. Scale bar = 100 μm.