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Corneal structure and transparency

The corneal stroma plays several pivotal roles within the eye. Optically, it is the main refracting lens and thus has to combine almost perfect transmission of visible light with precise shape, in order to focus incoming light. Furthermore, mechanically it has to be extremely tough to protect the in...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Meek, Keith M., Knupp, Carlo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Pergamon 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4655862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26145225
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.preteyeres.2015.07.001
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author Meek, Keith M.
Knupp, Carlo
author_facet Meek, Keith M.
Knupp, Carlo
author_sort Meek, Keith M.
collection PubMed
description The corneal stroma plays several pivotal roles within the eye. Optically, it is the main refracting lens and thus has to combine almost perfect transmission of visible light with precise shape, in order to focus incoming light. Furthermore, mechanically it has to be extremely tough to protect the inner contents of the eye. These functions are governed by its structure at all hierarchical levels. The basic principles of corneal structure and transparency have been known for some time, but in recent years X-ray scattering and other methods have revealed that the details of this structure are far more complex than previously thought and that the intricacy of the arrangement of the collagenous lamellae provides the shape and the mechanical properties of the tissue. At the molecular level, modern technologies and theoretical modelling have started to explain exactly how the collagen fibrils are arranged within the stromal lamellae and how proteoglycans maintain this ultrastructure. In this review we describe the current state of knowledge about the three-dimensional stromal architecture at the microscopic level, and about the control mechanisms at the nanoscopic level that lead to optical transparency.
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spelling pubmed-46558622015-12-18 Corneal structure and transparency Meek, Keith M. Knupp, Carlo Prog Retin Eye Res Article The corneal stroma plays several pivotal roles within the eye. Optically, it is the main refracting lens and thus has to combine almost perfect transmission of visible light with precise shape, in order to focus incoming light. Furthermore, mechanically it has to be extremely tough to protect the inner contents of the eye. These functions are governed by its structure at all hierarchical levels. The basic principles of corneal structure and transparency have been known for some time, but in recent years X-ray scattering and other methods have revealed that the details of this structure are far more complex than previously thought and that the intricacy of the arrangement of the collagenous lamellae provides the shape and the mechanical properties of the tissue. At the molecular level, modern technologies and theoretical modelling have started to explain exactly how the collagen fibrils are arranged within the stromal lamellae and how proteoglycans maintain this ultrastructure. In this review we describe the current state of knowledge about the three-dimensional stromal architecture at the microscopic level, and about the control mechanisms at the nanoscopic level that lead to optical transparency. Pergamon 2015-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4655862/ /pubmed/26145225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.preteyeres.2015.07.001 Text en © 2015 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Meek, Keith M.
Knupp, Carlo
Corneal structure and transparency
title Corneal structure and transparency
title_full Corneal structure and transparency
title_fullStr Corneal structure and transparency
title_full_unstemmed Corneal structure and transparency
title_short Corneal structure and transparency
title_sort corneal structure and transparency
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4655862/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26145225
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.preteyeres.2015.07.001
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