Estradiol and progesterone may influence disease activity in MS. If further studies confirm these results, it may be possible to develop therapy by altering levels of these hormones.
Although the visual prognosis is often poor, surgical preservation of the eye can be achieved by penetrating keratoplasty and systemic immunosuppression. With careful observation and regular monitoring, immunosuppressive medication appears to be safely tolerated in this group of patients.
SUMMARYHerpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) has been isolated from explanted human corneas after cultivation in vitro. To determine whether HSV-1 is persistent or latent in corneal cells, a system to study HSV-1 infection of rabbit corneal cells in vitro was developed. By elevation of the incubation temperature to 42 °C before and during HSV-1 infection it was shown that both keratocytes and epithelial cells support a nonproductive rather than a productive infection. On subsequent temperature reduction to 37 °C, infectious virus was released from both cell types. Addition of the viral inhibitor acycloguanosine during the last 5 days of a 14 day incubation at 42 °C did not reduce the frequency of viral shedding following transfer to 37 °C, indicating that corneal cells support a latent as opposed to persistent infection. Cultures which failed to shed virus spontaneously up to 29 days post-inoculation were superinfected at 37 °C, with an XbaI site deletion mutant of HSV-1. Restriction endonuclease analysis of progeny identified both the initial infecting virus and recombinants between the parental and superinfecting genomes.
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