Eye histology

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 The eye is a complex sensory organ that provides the sense
of sight, suspended in the bony orbital socket by the extrinsic
muscles that control its movement, and a thick layer of adipose
tissue partially surrounds and cushions it as it moves within the
orbit.
It has several accessory structures:
1- Eyelid:
Pliable structures
containing skin, muscle
and conjunctiva that
protect the eyes, the
skin is a stratified
squamous epithelium
that is loose and elastic
and lacks fat, beneath
the skin are striated
fascicles of the
orbicularis oculi and
levator palpebrae
muscles, that fold the
eyelids, and many
sebaceous and sweat
glands.

2- Conjunctiva:
It consists of stratified columnar epithelium, with
numerous goblet cells, supported by a thin lamina propria of
loose vascular connective tissue, it covers the anterior portion
of the sclera and continues as the lining of the inner surface of
the eyelids.

3- Lacrimal apparatus:
The lacrimal glands have acini composed of secretory cells
filled with small, light staining granules and myoepithelial cells,

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the acini are surrounded by connective tissue that contains
blood vessels.
Their main function is to secrete tears, which contains
various metabolites, electrolytes, and proteins of innate
immunity such as lysozyme.
Approximately 12 ducts drain from the lacrimal gland into
the reflection of conjunctiva just beneath the upper eyelid,
known as the fornix of the lacrimal sac.
Later, drainage of the excess tears occur through lacrimal
canaliculi that join to form the common canaliculus, which
opens into the lacrimal sac which opens into the nasolacrimal
duct, a pseudostratified ciliated epithelium lines both the
lacrimal sac and the nasolacrimal duct.

4- Extrinsic muscles:
Six skeletal muscles in each eye that control eye movement
in many directions.

Main coats of the eye:

Its contains three structural coats: fibrous, vascular and
nervous coats.

1- Fibrous coat: consists of:

A- Sclera: a thick, fibrous layer, consists mainly dense
connective tissue, with flat bundles of type I, also
tendons of the extrinsic muscles insert into the anterior
region of the sclera.
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 Posteriorly, it thickens to approximately 1 mm and joins
with the epineurium covering the optic nerve.
It contains three layers:
 The episcleral layer: loose connective tissue.
 Substantia propria: Dense network of thick
collagen fibers.
 Suprachoroid lamina: collagen fibers, elastic fibers,
fibroblasts, melanocytes and macrophages.
B- Cornea: forms the anterior one-sixth of the eye, the
cornea is divided into five distinct layers:
o An external nonkeratinized stratified squamous
epithelium.
o An anterior limiting membrane (Bowman
membrane), which is the basement membrane of the
external stratified epithelium.
o The thick stroma makes up 90% of the cornea’s
thickness and consists of approximately 60 layers of
parallel collagen bundles.
o A posterior limiting membrane which is the basement
membrane of the endothelium.
o An inner simple squamous endothelium.

C- Limbus:

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 A transitional area where the transparent cornea merges
with the opaque sclera.

2- Vascular coat:
Consists of three parts:
A- The choroid:
A dark brown vascular sheet only 0.25 mm thick posteriorly
and 0.1 mm thick anteriorly, lies between the sclera and retina.
It’s composed of two layers:
 The choriocapillary layer: an inner vascular layer.
 Bruch’s membrane: a thin extracellular sheet, composed
of collagen and elastic fibers.
B- Ciliary body:
The anterior expansion of the uvea that encircles the lens,
associated with important structures such as:
 Ciliary muscle: consists of three groups of smooth
muscle, which perform a highly important function in
visual accommodation since their contraction effects the
shape of the lens.
 Ciliary processes: Series of about 75 ridges extend in the
inner highly vascular region of the ciliary body, hence
they provide a large surface area covered by double
layer of low columnar epithelial cells, called ciliary
epithelium, melanin is distributed in these cells.
 Extensive basolateral folds with Na + / K+ - ATPase
activity, specialized for secretion of aqueous humor.
 Ciliary zonule: a system of many radially oriented fibers
composed largely of fibrillin 1 and 2 produced by the
nonpigmented epithelial cells on the ciliary processes,
the fibers extend from grooves between the ciliary
processes and attach to the surface of the lens, holding
that structure in place.
C- The iris
The most anterior part of the vascular coat, forms a
contractile diaphragm in front of the lens, attached to the
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sclera about 2 mm posterior to the corneoscleral junction,
consists of highly vascularized connective tissue that is covered
on its posterior surface by
highly pigmented cells that
neither the nucleus nor the
cytoplasm can be seen in the
light microscope, they’re
called the posterior pigment
epithelium, it blocks all the
light entering the eye except
that passing through the pupil.
The pupil motion is
controlled by the dilator
pupillae muscle, and sphincter
pupillae muscle; the latter is
formed from a circular bundle
of smooth muscle fibers, these
muscles enlarge and constrict
the pupil.
Another type of cells are myoepithelial cells which form a
partially pigmented epithelial layer and extend contractile
processes radially as the very thin dilator pupillae muscle.

3- The inner coat (retina):

Derived from the inner and outer layers of the optic cups, it
consists of two basic layers:
- The outer pigmented layer composed of simple cuboidal
epithelium attached to Bruch’s membrane and the
choroido-capillary lamina of the choroid, this cellular
region contains numerous phagocytic vacuoles and
secondary lysosomes, peroxisomes, and abundant
smooth ER specialized for retinal isomerization.
So many and diverse are the functions of the pigmented
layer, it absorbs scattered light, isolates retina
photoreceptors from the choroid in regulates ion
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 transport between them in the same time, phagocytizes
shed components from adjacent photoreceptors, and
removes free radicals.
- The neural retina or retian proper, the inner thick layer
that contains the photoreceptor cells and various
neurons.
Photoreceptors are modified neurons, but structurally they
resemble tall epithelial cells turned upside down, containing a
large amount of Rod cells (about 92 million), thin, elongated
cells, composed of two functionally distinct segments: the
outer segment is a modified primary cilium, photosensitive and
shaped like a short rod, while the inner segment contains
glycogen, mitochondria and polyribosomes.
They’re extremely sensitive to light, that it responds to a
single photon.
Another type of cells cone cells which are less numerous
and less light-sensitive than rods, about 4.6 million cell in the
typical human retina produce color vision in adequately bright
light. There are three morphologically similar classes of cones,
each containing one type of the visual pigment iodospin, each
of three iodospins has maximal sensitivity to light of a different
wavelength in red, blue or green regions of the visible spectrum
respectively.
Specialized areas of the Retina:
The optic disc, or blind spot, occurs at the posterior of the
retina where the axons in the retina’s nerve fiber layer
converge at the optic nerve and leave the eye as the optic
nerve, it lacks photoreceptors and that’s why it’s called (blind),
a paired central artery and vein in the optic nerve branches at
the optic disc to produce microvasculature that runs through
the NFL to supply the neurons and glial cells of the inner layers
in all quadrants of the retina.
The fovea centralis is an area near the optic disc and
directly opposite the pupil, it’s a shallow depression within the
retina where cell bodies of the ganglionic and inner nuclear
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layers are dispersed peripherally, leaving primarily cone cells,
the fovea allows light to fall directly on its cones with very little
light scatter.
The macula lutea, 2mm in diameter, where axons of the
cone cells contain various carotenoids, giving this area its
yellowish color.
Vitreous body:
Occupies the large vitreous chamber behind the lens, it
consists of transparent, gel-like connective tissue that is 99%
water, with collagen fibrils and hyaluronate, contained within
an external lamina called vitreous membrane.
The only cells in the vitreous body are a small
mesenchymal population near the membrane called
hyalocytes, which synthesize the hyaluronate and collagen, and
a few macrophages.

Lens
The lens is unique avascular tissue and is highly elastic, it
has three principal components:
 A thick, homogenous lens capsule composed of
proteoglycans and type IV collagen surrounds the lens
and provides the place of attachment for the fibers of
the ciliary zonule.
 A subcapsular lens epithelium consists of a single layer
of cuboidal cells present only on the anterior surface of
the lens, the epithelial cells attach basally to the
surrounding lens capsule and their apical surfaces bind
to the internal lens fibers.
 Lens fibers are highly elongated, terminally
differentiated cells that appear as thin, flattened
structures, the cytoplasm becomes filled with a group of
protein called crystallins, and the organelles and nuclei
undergo autophagy.

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 The lens is held in place by fibers of the ciliary zonule,
which extend from the lens capsule to the ciliary body,
together with the ciliary muscles, this structure allows the
process of visual accommodation, which permits focusing on
near and far objects by changing the curvature of the lens.

References:
- Junquiera’s Basic histology, text and atlas, Anthony L.
Mescher, Mcgraw hill education, fourteenth edition, 2016
- Histology, a text and atlas, with correlated cell and
molecular biology, Michael H. Ross & Wojciech Pawlina,
Wolter’s Kluwer health, sixth edition, 2011.