Quantifying corneal endothelial cell death
- Westmead Hospital, Sydney, Australia
- Correspondence to: J G Crowston; jcrowston{at}lineone.net
We read with interest the paper by Gain et al,1 which assessed two distinct techniques to quantify corneal endothelial cell death in donor corneas. A significantly higher rate of cell death was observed with the TUNEL assay, which labels nuclei with fragmented DNA, compared to the trypan blue exclusion method, which detects cells with disrupted cell membranes. The authors conclude that TUNEL analysis is more accurate than trypan blue exclusion as a means of assessing the impact of different corneal storage methods on endothelial viability.
Our experience of using a number of cell death assays …
