Effect of Aldosterone on the Living Cornea in vitro

Abstract

EARLIER work has shown that the cornea of the rabbit, excised and mounted between two chambers, can be kept alive and functioning for 8 hr.¹ during which time it can be demonstrated that the epithelium generates an electrical potential of 20–50 mV.¹, that sodium is actively transported across the epithelium into the corneal stroma², and that the net flux of sodium is equivalent to virtually all the neutralizing current^2,3. This system appeared to afford a satisfactory model for the in vitro study of the effect on sodium transport of aldosterone, the principal sodium-retaining steroid of the adrenal cortex of most mammals studied⁴. Aldosterone is assumed to affect sodium exchange in the renal tubule⁵, and has been demonstrated in vitro to stimulate transport of sodium across the isolated bladder of a toad⁶ and skin of a frog⁷. In the present investigation the effect of aldosterone on the excised cornea of the rabbit was assessed in vitro.