Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 24 pp 12497—12531

Figure 5. Live lens measurements of capsule thickness and anterior epithelial cell area and fixed lens measurements of cortical fiber cell width. Lines on the plots reflect mean ± SD of n = at least 6 lenses per age. Data from 2-month-old samples are reprinted from our previous publication [53]. *, p<0.05; **, p<0.01; ****, p<0.0001. (A) Lens capsule thickness increases between 2 months and older ages, but the thickness is unchanged after 4 months of age. WGA (lens capsule) is shown in green, and tdTomato signal (basal surface of anterior epithelial cells) is shown in red. (B) Anterior epithelial cell area is increased between 2 and 4 months and 12 months of age. Cell nuclei (Hoechst) is shown in blue, and tdTomato signal (lateral membrane of anterior epithelial cells) is shown in grayscale. (C) Cortical fiber cell width increases between 2-month-old and older lenses, but there is no increase in fiber cell width after 4 months of age. The fiber cells are numbered showing 11 full-width cells in the 2-month-old lens and 10 full-width cells in lenses that were 4 months and older. These measurements show that although mouse lenses continue to increase in size with age, capsule thickness and fiber cell size only increase until about 4 months of age. There is a mild increase in epithelial cell size up to 12 months of age.