Optical anisotropies in corneal stroma collagen fibers from diabetic spontaneous mice

In this work, optical retardation (OR) was investigated in corneal stroma collagen fibers from nonobese diabetic (NOD) and healthy (BALB/c) mice. Linear dichroism (LD) was investigated in corneas stained with Ponceau SS and Toluidine Blue, using microspectrophotometer. NOD corneas showed higher OR values than the control. Ponceau SS-complexed collagen fibers showed positive LD that was higher for NOD corneas. After staining with Toluidine Blue, NOD and BALB/c corneas showed negative LD. The results of this study demonstrate that diabetes was capable of altering the corneal optical anisotropies, possibly altering the number of intermolecular crosslinks in collagen fibers.