Healing‐over in rat crystalline lens.

Abstract

42K efflux were studied in normal and injured rat crystalline lenses to test their ability to heal-over. Following injury, a sizeable but transient increase in fractional loss of 42K occurred. The lens healing-over was Ca-dependent and could not be accounted for by membrane resealing. This was excluded by the fact that procion yellow gains access to damaged fibers even 2 h after injury when the healing-over is completed. The occlusion of the junctional channels was the basic mechanism of healing-over. This was supported by the observation that procion yellow does not diffuse from damaged to intact fibers and by the Ca dependency of the phenomenon.