Abstract
The aqueous humor and the vitreous not only maintain integrity of the eye but also play a vital role in providing nutrients to ocular tissues. While the presence of epidermal growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor, and transforming growth factor-Β (TGF-Β) have been confirmed in human aqueous humor, only TGF-Β has been found to exist in human vitreous. In this study I obtained eyes for keratoplasty from 20 male and 20 female donors, or a total of 40 subjects; upon removing the corneal button, I extracted 500 µ1 of the vitreous humor in order to confirm, using the ELISA method, the presence of transforming growth factor-Α (TGF-Α) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) in the vitreous. TGF-Α ranging from 78 to 250 pg/ml, or an average of 130.65 ± 40.89 pg/ml, was found in all eyes. On the other hand, EGF was not confirmed in all eyes. This is the first study to confirm the presence of TGF-Α in the human vitreous.

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