Corneal endothelial cells have been shown to possess a uniform polygonal and complex multipolar shape at their apical and basolateral surface respectively. We established a morphological timetable to study how this complex shape arises postnatally. Corneas were collected from mice between postnatal day 8 to postnatal day 35 and labelled with antibodies specific for ZO-1 and NCAM at apical and basolateral region, respectively. Images were collected using wide-field fluorescence microscopy and morphometrically analyzed. Results showed that apical cell sizes increase linearly over the first 3 weeks, plateauing at 4-5 weeks postnatally with increased regularity. Basolateral membrane surfaces remained relatively smooth prior to eyelid opening and thereafter begins developing showing differences in development from periphery to the center until about 4 weeks postnatally when the wavy processes get vivid. Results indicate concurrent and independent development at both poles of the corneal endothelium, with more complexity seen at the basolateral surface.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed Feb. 15, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-37).

Yes / A confocal microscope provides a sequence of images of the corneal layers and structures at different depths from which medical clinicians can extract clinical information on the state of health of the patient’s cornea. Hybrid model based on snake and particle swarm optimisation (S-PSO) is proposed in this paper to analyse the confocal endothelium images. The proposed system is able to pre-process (quality enhancement, noise reduction), detect the cells, measure the cell density and identify abnormalities in the analysed data sets. Three normal corneal data sets acquired using confocal microscope, and two abnormal endothelium images associated with diseases have been investigated in the proposed system. Promising results are achieved and the performance of this system are compared with the performance of two morphological based approaches. The developed system can be deployed as clinical tool to underpin the expertise of ophthalmologists in analysing confocal corneal images.