Compared to healthy counterparts, corneas from patients with diabetes exhibited significantly reduced immunoreactivity and number of cells positive for proteins that are commonly used to identify LESCs, including ATP-binding cassette superfamily G member 2 (ABCG2), neural cadherin (N-Cadherin), ∆Np63α, keratin 15 (K15), K17, K19 and β1 integrin, thereby hinting that these cells are either depleted or dysfunctional under disease-bearing conditions [34]. The gene discussed is CDH2; the disease is diabetes mellitus.