Effects of prostaglandin E-2 on growth, morphology, morphometry and keratin pattern of bovine corneal epithelial cells cultured in vitro

In this work the relationship between the proliferation of bovine corneal e pithelial cells and PGE(2) has been studied. Our data indicate that PGE(2) plays an important role in the growth of corneal epithelial cells. Actually , epithelial cells cultured on a keratocyte feeder-layer and exposed to ind omethacin, a cyclooxygenase inhibitor, have shown a decrease in growth rate at drug concentrations which otherwise did not induce a reduction in the v iability of the keratocytes as well as in epithelial cells in separate cult ures. This effect has been reversed by an exogenous PGE(2) addition to the culture media. Moreover, significant increases have been found in the growt h of epithelial cells cultured in the presence of keratocytes, with basal m edium and with conditioning medium after adding exogenous PGE(2) at concent rations equal to or lower than 10(-6) M. Significant decreases in the dimen sions of the corneal epithelial cells have been found only when PGE(2) has been added to basal and to conditioning medium, suggesting that the autacoi d maintains cell dimension and morphology. The appearance of keratins with high molecular weight (54 and 57 kDa) coupled with the tendency to stratifi cation of the cells cultivated with media supplemented with PGE(2), indicat es that the autacoid could favour cell differentiation. The action of PGE(2 ) on the corneal epithelial cells does not seem to be influenced by the pre sence of the fibroblasts and their products, since PGE(2) has induced incre ases in cell growth and morphological variations, independent of cultural c onditions and therefore also only in the presence of basal medium.