Winston W.-Y. Kao

TL;DR: It is shown that EMT of primary lens epithelial cells in vitro depends on TGF-beta expression and that injury-induced EMT in vivo depends, more specifically, on signaling via Smad3.

TL;DR: It is shown that injured mouse corneal epithelium ectopically and transiently expresses lumican during the early phase of wound healing, suggesting a potential lumican functionality unrelated to regulation of collagen fibrillogenesis, e.g. modulation of epithelial cell adhesion or migration.

TL;DR: It is shown that ATP-binding cassette, sub-family B, member 5 (ABCB5) marks LSCs and is required for LSC maintenance, corneal development and repair, and it is demonstrated that prospectively isolated human or murine ABCB5-positive L SCs possess the exclusive capacity to fully restore the cornea upon grafting to LSC-deficient mice in xenogeneic or syngeneic transplantation models.

TL;DR: The results suggest that cell‐based therapy can be an effective approach to treatment of human corneal blindness and support the immune privilege of adult stem cells and the ability of stem cell therapy to regenerate tissue in a manner analogous to organogenesis and clearly different from that of normal wound healing.

TL;DR: Ablation of the Kera gene resulted in subtle structural alterations of collagenous matrix and did not perturb the expression of other SLRPs in cornea, showing that keratocan plays a unique role in maintaining the appropriate corneal shape to ensure normal vision.