ABSTRACT
The corneal stroma represents a unique connective tissue. Its collagenous structure is highly oriented and regular, and, due to this, it is a transparent tissue. In this short chapter we want to demonstrate polarization microscopic findings obtained in embryonic human and chick corneas. These observations strongly suggest that GAGs are also oriented in the corneal lamellae, and the embryonic differentiation of the stromal lamellae — which occurs in a posterior-anterior direction — includes the oriented axiparallel deposition of the GAGs. Furthermore, it will be shown that the acellular primary cornea matrix has also a spatially oriented microstructure.
