title: Some aspects of cataract morphology: a SEM-study.
abstract: Two lenses from patients of very advanced age with senile cataracts were processed for SEM, fractured equatorially, sputtered with Au and examined by SEM. In the cross-fracture various areas could be observed. Although the overall structure of the lens-fibres appeared to be intact, higher magnifications showed that the len-fibre material had changed into a brittle structure, with either a granular appearance or a fibrillar character. At other places clearly recrystallization of lens-fibre proteins had taken place, with the formation of finger-like substructures, sometimes organized into plate-like structures or running parallel to each other in a kind of undulating pattern. Between the various areas of chemically changed lens-fibre material certain 'canal-like' areas were found with cellular structures, the so-called 'waterclefts' or 'Wasserspalten'. Structures which, together with the chemical change in the lens proteins, account for the dramatic change in light dispersion.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical Electron Microscopy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: W L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Jongebloed
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dijk
authors.forename: J G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Worst
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002386:Cataract / Q000473:pathology*; D003459:Crystallins / Q000032:analysis; D005614:Freeze Fracturing; D006801:Humans; D007908:Lens, Crystalline / Q000032:analysis / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning
chemical_list: D003459:Crystallins