Adult white New Zealand rabbit as suitable model for corneal endothelial engineering

Abstract Background Corneal endothelium engineering is focused in producing transplantable cell sheets to overcome the shortage of corneal graft tissue donors for the treatment of corneal blindness. For this purpose, the use of a proper animal model plays a key role. Corneal parameters of White New Zealand rabbits such as endothelial cell density, central corneal thickness, and corneal diameter decrease with age, similarly as in humans. However, as opposed to humans, they retain the ability to restore their corneal endothelium after injury. Therefore, they are considered as an inappropriate corneal endothelial wound healing model. Findings Here we analyze the corneal endothelium mitotic ability of White New Zealand rabbits aged 3, 6, 12 and 18\ua0months, 36 and 72\ua0hours after thermal injury. The highest mitotic activity was observed in the 3-month rabbits 36\ua0h after wounding. Rabbits of 12\ua0months registered decreased mitotic activity and those of 18\ua0months did not show mitotic activity 72\ua0h after injury. Conclusions These results propose that rabbits of 18\ua0months represent a suitable model for human corneal endothelium engineering research