A comparison of the gene expression between the cortical fiber and epithelial cells in mouse eye lens

The eye lens is composed of fiber cells, which differentiate from epithelial cells on its anterior surface. In concert with this differentiation, a set of proteins essential for lens function is synthesized, and the cellular organelles are degraded. To understand the molecular mechanism of the lens cell differentiation, we compared the gene expression profiles between epithelial and cortical fiber cells of young mouse lens using a microarray analysis. Keywords: cell-type comparison To prepare lens epithelial and cortical fiber cells, lenses from 13-day-old mice (5 mice) were soaked in Hank’s balanced salt solution containing 1.26 mM CaCl2 and 0.91 mM MgCl2, and dissected by forceps into capsules that included the adhering epithelial cells and into cortical fiber cells. RNA was then prepared from epithelial and cortical fiber cells.