Long-term immune and extracellular matrix remodeling in the mouse cornea after open-field blast injury

In this study, awake, non-sedated C57BL/6J mice were exposed to a single open-field blast generated by detonation of 350 g Composition C-4 explosive at a 3 m standoff distance. Corneas were collected 12 months after blast exposure and compared with age-matched naïve controls using bulk RNA sequencing.

Differential expression analysis identified persistent transcriptomic remodeling in OFBI corneas, with clear separation from naïve controls by principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering. The data analysis demonstrated that OFBI induces durable corneal transcriptomic remodeling 12 months after injury.