Comparison of dissociated limbal epithelial cells with cultured limbal epithelial cells for 14 days.

<p><b>A</b> Colony forming efficiency expressed as the percentage of seeded cells giving rise to clone (CFE %). Significantly higher CFE (%) (p=0.000002) was obtained after 14 days of primary culture of limbal explants compared with non-cultured dissociated limbal epithelial cells. <b>B, C</b> Immunohistochemical analysis of enzymatically dissociated cells and cells cultured for 14 days from human limbal explants. <b>B</b> Primary culture: expression of differentiation markers and progenitors markers was significantly higher in cells cultured for 14 days than in dissociated cells from the explants (p < 0.02) except for CK3 (p = 0.44). C Clones: immunostaining of differentiation and progenitor markers was significantly higher in colonies obtained from cells cultured for 14 days than in colonies obtained from cells dissociated from explants (p < 0.02). Shown are mean <u>+</u> standard errors of the mean.