“…As quiescence or cell morphology alterations are not unique to the keratocyte phenotype,5 we corroborated our mechanical findings with traditional qPCR, to examine the gene expression of characteristic markers, specific to a keratocytic genotype. In previous studies lumican,22, 30 keratocan,22, 31 ALDH 3 ,22, 31, 32 Thy‐1,9, 33, 34 α‐SMA,5, 6, 8, 13, 35 fibronectin,5, 36 CD3435 and vimentin37 have all been examined to help to determine and distinguish the differences in gene and protein expression between corneal keratocytes, fibroblasts and myofibroblast phenotypes in vitro . In this study, we chose to monitor the gene expression profiles of four markers, keratocan, ALDH 3 , Thy‐1 and α‐SMA in response to the chemical and topographical cues.…”