Lens wound healing and cataractogenesis in a pigmented eye

Light and electron microscopy and slitlamp microscopy were used to follow the development and partial repair of injury-induced cataract in the lens of the pigmented eye of the grey squirrel. These processes proceed in much the same way as in previously-studied albino rodents and rabbits in spite of invasion of the lens opacity by pigmented cells in the squirrel eye. Epithelial and capsular regeneration and lens fiber repair occur rapidly and apparently independently from the accumulation of pigmented cells, fibroblasts and collagen in the wound outside the lens epithelial layer. Using morphological criteria, some of the pigmented cells in the lens wound are identified as iris stromal melanocytes and pigmented epithelial cells; this is consonant with the slitlamp observations of streams of pigmented cells extending from the iris to the lens wound. The role, if any, of the pigmented cells in lens wound healing is unknown.