Sparsely covered explants were cultured with or without addition of SNP on day 0 and at change of medium on day 5. Cell coverage values are given as the mean±SEM. Other values indicate the number of explants exhibiting a particular feature. The p-value represents the significance of the difference between explants cultured with or without SNP using Student’s t-test to compare cell coverage values and Fisher’s exact test to compare ratios of explants exhibiting a particular feature in the two groups. SNP stands for sodium nitroprusside, and NS stands for not significant. The term “cobblestone arrays” indicates that confluent patches of cells exhibiting the cobblestone array typical of the normal lens epithelium were present. The term “blebbing and cell loss” indicates that explants exhibited cell-surface blebbing and cell detachment. The asterisk indicates that mean cell coverage in this group was 83%±8%.