Cell turnover in the adult human eye.

Previous reports from our laboratory 1-3 indicate that tritium-labeled thymidine can be used to study cell production and migration following intraocular injection in animals. A recent editorial 4 points out the usefulness of this method of nuclear labeling since the thymidine-tritium is incorporated into cellular desoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) during the premitotic coupling stage of cell division. This stage is normally followed by the remainder of cell division 5 (see text). The tritium tag is qualitatively located and semiquantitatively estimated by means of a high resolution autoradiographic film technique already described in detail for use with eye sections. 1 Studies were carried out on enucleated eyes and luxated cataractous (senile type) lenses of adult humans. Studies on various animal eyes were made for comparative purposes. This report demonstrates the similarities in the location of the germinative regions between the eye of the adult human and that of several animal species. Materials