ArticleInvestigative ophthalmology & visual science2014
The penny pusher: a cellular model of lens growth.
Article in Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lens aging and disease: Molecular mechanisms, functional consequences, and pharmacological implications.Progress in retinal and eye research · 2026Review
- Nonmuscle myosin IIA (NMIIA) regulates anisotropic cell tension to maintain the hexagonal packing of mouse lens meridional row cells.Molecular biology of the cell · 2025Article
- Biomechanical contributions to murine lens shape: Confinement, compaction, and residual stresses.Experimental eye research · 2025Article
- Depth and Strain-Dependent Structural Responses of Mouse Lens Fiber Cells During Whole Lens Shape Changes.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2025Article
- Comparative analysis of rodent lens morphometrics and biomechanical properties.Frontiers in ophthalmology · 2025Article
- Unanswered questions regarding the pathogenesis of late onset posterior capsular opacification.Frontiers in ophthalmology · 2025Review
- Disease-related non-muscle myosin IIA D1424N rod domain mutation, but not R702C motor domain mutation, disrupts mouse ocular lens fiber cell alignment and hexagonal packing.Cytoskeleton (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Human lens epithelial cells induce the inflammatory response when placed into the lens capsular bag model of posterior capsular opacification.Molecular vision · 2024Article
- Modeling Cataract Surgery in Mice.Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · 2023Article
- Towards the Identification and Characterization of Putative Adult Human Lens Epithelial Stem Cells.Cells · 2023Article
- Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Analysis of the Early Postnatal Mouse Lens Epithelium.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2023Article
- The effect of fibre cell remodelling on the power and optical quality of the lens.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
- Exosomal microRNA-222-3p increases UVB sensitivity of lens epithelium cells by suppressing MGMT.International ophthalmology · 2023Article
- Insights into the biochemical and biophysical mechanisms mediating the longevity of the transparent optics of the eye lens.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2022Review
- Article
- Methodologies to unlock the molecular expression and cellular structure of ocular lens epithelial cells.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Zinn's zonule.Progress in retinal and eye research · 2021Review
- Heterozygous Loss of Yap1 in Mice Causes Progressive Cataracts.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2020Article
- Age-related changes in eye lens biomechanics, morphology, refractive index and transparency.Aging · 2019Article
- Lens Stretching Modulates Lens Epithelial Cell Proliferation via YAP Regulation.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeThe mechanisms that regulate the number of cells in the lens and, therefore, its size and shape are unknown. We examined the dynamic relationship between proliferative behavior in the epithelial layer and macroscopic lens growth.
methodsThe distribution of S-phase cells across the epithelium was visualized by confocal microscopy and cell populations were determined from orthographic projections of the lens surface.
resultsThe number of S-phase cells in the mouse lens epithelium fell exponentially, to an asymptotic value of approximately 200 cells by 6 months. Mitosis became increasingly restricted to a 300-μm-wide swath of equatorial epithelium, the germinative zone (GZ), within which two peaks in labeling index were detected. Postnatally, the cell population increased to approximately 50,000 cells at 4 weeks of age. Thereafter, the number of cells declined, despite continued growth in lens dimensions. This apparently paradoxical observation was explained by a time-dependent increase in the surface area of cells at all locations. The cell biological measurements were incorporated into a physical model, the Penny Pusher. In this simple model, cells were considered to be of a single type, the proliferative behavior of which depended solely on latitude. Simulations using the Penny Pusher predicted the emergence of cell clones and were in good agreement with data obtained from earlier lineage-tracing studies.
conclusionsThe Penny Pusher, a simple stochastic model, offers a useful conceptual framework for the investigation of lens growth mechanisms and provides a plausible alternative to growth models that postulate the existence of lens stem cells.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.