Ours is the first laboratory to succeed in routinely culturing nonpigmented ciliary epithelium (NPE). The graph shows results from an experiment using a monolayer of cultured porcine NPE. Fluorescein-labelled dextran placed on one side of the monolayer, either on the apical side (pink squares) or basolateral side (black/yellow triangles) was unable to diffuse across the cell barrier. When no cells were present (blue diamonds) the dextran diffused quickly.
Cultured cells never behave in precisely the same way as the native cells from which they were derived. Nevertheless, the cultured NPE cells express almost all of the same proteins found in the native NPE. We are happy to share the cell culture technique with you if you are interested.