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Updated: Aug 21, 2026
An Alkali-burn Injury Model of Corneal Neovascularization in the Mouse
Published on: April 7, 2014
Changes of uPA and uPA-R expression in the cornea after alkali burn
Jun Yan1, Tian Yang, Guoping Li
1Department of Cell Biology, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, PR China.
Purpose:
To investigate the expression levels of uPA and uPA-R in corneal repair after alkali burn.
Methods:
The corneal alkali burn models were established in vitro and in vivo, then immunocytochemistry (ICC) of uPA/uPA-R and image analysis and statistical evaluation were performed to determine their expression levels both in vitro and in vivo.
Results:
Compared with control group, the expressions of uPA and uPA-R after alkali burn had no significant increases till 6h, then increased rapidly from 12h to 24h and reached their maxima at 24h. From 24h, their expression levels decreased rapidly. In vivo, they rebounded again after 48h and attained their second peaks at 96h, respectively. After that, their expressions decreased again. The uPA-positive reaction mainly distributed in the cytoplasm while that of uPA-R mostly distributed on the cellular membrane. Their expression changes were similar to each other, both in vivo and in vitro. In vivo, uPA and uPA-R expressed and gathered in the basal layer of corneal epithelium.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that the time phase of 24h after wound is the typical stage associating with the expressional maximum of uPA and uPA-R both in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore, the results also imply that the expression changes of uPA and uPA-R correlate to the wound healing after the corneal alkali burn, uPA and uPA-R coordinate with each other to stimulate the wound healing.
