At D1, there was no difference between the distribution areas of Ki67
+ and EdU
+ ECs in the corneal periphery (
P = 0.4964). The width of the peripheral zone containing all Ki67
+ and EdU
+ ECs measured 692 ± 186 µm in the medial and lateral quadrants, 910 ± 200 µm in the inferior quadrant, and 1458 ± 146 µm in the superior quadrant (
P < 0.0002). At D40, the width of the proliferative zone, hosting the Ki67
+ ECs, remained unaltered in all quadrants (
P > 0.1012). In contrast, the EdU
+ ECs (LRCs) had moved centripetally at D40, reaching 619 ± 425 µm further centrally from the endothelial edge compared with D1 (
P < 0.0001), corresponding with a migration speed of 16 µm/day. This finding was consistent in all quadrants, where the EdU
+ ECs at D40 in the medial, lateral, inferior, and superior quadrants reached 1306 ± 206 µm, 1129 ± 292 µm, 1499 ± 225 µm, and 2219 ± 141 µm, respectively, centripetally from the endothelial edge (
Fig. 4). At D40, in five of eight corneas, a few EdU
+ cells were located further centrally than 2.3 mm, but only in the superior quadrant, reaching up to 2.5 mm. No Ki67
+ or EdU
+ ECs were observed in the center at any time point. It should be noted that from D1 to D40, the cornea white-to-white diameter, which was measured on flat-mounted corneas, increased from 1.2 ± 0.02 cm to 1.4 ± 0.02 cm (
P < 0.0001).