Figure 1: Schematic illustration of the experimental procedure that was followed.

(1) sutures were placed intrastromally into the temporal cornea, and immediately followed by topical application of eye drops (IgG, anti-Vegf or dexamethasone). Eye drops were applied until the 48 h time point. At t=48 h, IVCM and slit lamp data was collected and used for phenotypic characterisation. (2) cornea tissue was harvested and used for RNA extraction, and RNA quality verified. (3) high quality RNA was used for target preparation for microarray hybridisation on to GeneChip Rat 230 2.0 microarray chips. The microarray chips were scanned and image files acquired. (4) CEL files were normalised using expression console software. The generated CHP together with the CEL files were submitted to Gene Expression Omnibus repository.