Animal Models of Herpes Keratitis

Animal Models in Eye Research: Focus on Corneal Pathologies

“…This viral form is the most destructive and can lead to blindness due to progressive corneal scarring with recurrences. Herpes stromal keratitis is characterized by progressive leukocytic infiltration, opacity, and vascularization of the cornea [183,185]. HSV-1 infection can be classified into primary or recurrent disease.…”

“…For primary HSV-1 ocular infection, clinical manifestations tend to occur in youth or young adults. After primary infection of the oral-facial region, including the cornea, infected humans are likely to carry a latent viral load because the HSV virus moves particularly to the trigeminal ganglia, where a latent state is established without the production of infectious viral particles [57,185]. Subsequently, the virus may undergo cycles of reactivation, causing recurrent viral or immune pathology at the initial site of infection.…”

“…Thus, frequent attacks of this virus cause nerve damage that reduces the sensitivity of the eye. Much work is being devoted to the HSV-1 study because a thorough understanding of the HSV-1 disease process could lead to the prevention of acute HSV-1 infection, reactivation, development of HSV-1 vaccine, and more effective treatments of recurrent eye diseases in general [57,185,186]. Clinical trials for vaccines against this type of infection have been ongoing for more than three decades [186].…”

“…Despite this, no vaccine has been approved, and no formal clinical trials have evaluated the impact of HSV vaccines on ocular health. Compared with other external anatomic sites, the pathology and healing of corneal tissues after HSV infection is complex and clinically problematic due to the need to preserve corneal clarity and sensitivity, especially in the cases of severe HSV infection, i.e., herpes stromal keratitis [185,187,188]. This disease is often studied to develop an effective vaccine against HSV-1 because if the vaccine protects against herpes stromal keratitis, it should also protect against other herpes infections in the eye.…”

“…Primary and latency HSV-1 corneal infections have been studied in a variety of animal models to better understand multiple aspects of HSV biology, molecular biology, pathogenesis, disease, and immunity, especially for vaccine-induced protection [57,185,186]. Although all animal models are inherently imperfect representations of human disease, the high species specificity of HSV-1 allows for the development of a wide range of animal models, such as mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, owl monkeys, and rhesus macaques.…”