The role of the limbus in ocular surface maintenance and repair.

Since Claes Dohlman's original treatise on the corneal epithelium, a great deal has been learned about the biology of that layer. Its maintenance depends in part on centripetal movement of cells from the periphery toward the center. To some degree the supply of these peripheral cells appears to be dependent on the proliferation of cells at the limbus, from so-called 'stem cells'. Studies of stem cell replication and differentiation of their progeny will lead undoubtedly to new insights into the the mechanisms responsible for many of the chronic abnormalities of the central corneal surface.