Fig. 7. Ultrastructure of wild-type and SEY (+/–) corneal epithelium. 6-week-old wild-type (A,C) and SEY (+/–) (B,D) corneal epithelium are shown at 9900x (A,B) and 15,000x (C,D) magnification. Large gaps (asterisks in B,D) were present between cells from the suprabasal to superficial layers in SEY (+/–) epithelium. By contrast, notice the tightly adhered cell layers in the wild-type epithelium; gaps (asterisk in C) are present only in the most superficial layer of the wild-type epithelium. Furthermore, the number of individual desmosomal complexes (the electron-dense structures; arrows in C,D), are reduced, but the size of these complexes is increased in the SEY (+/–) compared with the wild-type epithelium.

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