Mechanism of repair of lenticular wounds in Rana pipiens. I. Role of cell migration.

Abstract

AbstractThe earliest visible changes that occur in the normal organization of the lens epithelium after a penetrating wound in the lens suggest that passage of an injury stimulus outward from the wound occurs within the first half day after injury: changes in normal tissue architecture appear near the wound at six hours and move outward to involve the proliferative zone by 12 hours. This is followed by migration of cells toward the wound. There is a slight increase in cell number in the proliferative zone within the first day, followed at later intervals by a decrease there and a concomitant increase in cell number adjacent to the wound. After a pre‐injury injection of H3‐TdR (or I125‐UdR), labeled cells that had incorporated the precursor in the normal proliferative zone were found progressively closer to the wound with increasing time. Only the cells which incorporated the radioactive tracer could be followed, but it is likely that cells in the central areas also migrated toward the wound since they showed spindling and superimposition. Migration of cells into the wound margins is an important phase of wound closure which begins long before the major productions of new cells by mitosis.