Intraocular transplants of olfactory neuroepithelium in rat

Olfactory neuroepithelium of neonatal rat pups has been transplanted in the anterior chamber of the eye of adult rats. Structural and ultrastructural observations at 5, 10, 30, 50, 90 and 120 days show that mature neurons degenerate rapidly in the expiant (before 5 days) while the basal elements proliferate and produce a new population of young neurons between 1 and 10 days. At longer survivals (30-120 days) it is seen that the neurons acquire morphological maturity, and positivity to the olfactory marker protein, as demonstrated by immunohistochemical methods. Our observations show that new neurons can be generated in the transplanted neuroepithelium and that their generation and maturation occurs in the absence of connections with a brain target.