Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Mar 26, 2015; 7(2): 281-299
Published online Mar 26, 2015. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v7.i2.281
Evaluating alternative stem cell hypotheses for adult corneal epithelial maintenance
John D West, Natalie J Dorà, J Martin Collinson
John D West, Natalie J Dorà, Genes and Development Group, Centre for Integrative Physiology, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9XD Edinburgh, United Kingdom
J Martin Collinson, Institute of Medical Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, College of Life Sciences and Medicine, Foresterhill, University of Aberdeen, AB25 2ZD Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Author contributions: West JD drafted and designed the manuscript; Dorà NJ performed research; West JD and Dorà NJ prepared the figures; West JD, Dorà NJ and Collinson JM wrote, critically revised and approved the manuscript.
Supported by Grants from the Wellcome Trust, No. 088876/Z/09/Z; and the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, No. BB/J015172/1 and No. BB/J015237/1.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: John D West, University Reader, Genes and Development Group, Centre for Integrative Physiology, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Hugh Robson Building, George Square, EH8 9XD Edinburgh, United Kingdom. john.west@ed.ac.uk
Telephone: +44-131-6503112 Fax:+44-131-6511706
Received: July 29, 2014
Peer-review started: July 29, 2014
First decision: September 4, 2014
Revised: September 26, 2014
Accepted: October 14, 2014
Article in press: October 16, 2014
Published online: March 26, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: This review article evaluates the evidence for different hypotheses that have been proposed to explain how the corneal epithelium is maintained. It identifies core observations in favour of the conventional limbal epithelial stem cell (LESC) hypothesis and an alternative corneal epithelial stem cell hypothesis and describes how lineage-tracing experiments are helping to reconcile the two sets of conflicting evidence in favour of the LESC hypothesis.