Eye pathology associated with measles encephalitis in hamsters

Abstract

Measles encephalitis was produced in 41 hamsters by intracerebral injection of the hamster-neuroadapted Mantooth HBS viral strain. Group I (n = 10) included 2-day old (newborn) hamsters, each inoculated with 0.02 ml of 1:20 diluted virus. This group was sacrificed 4 days postinoculation (DPI). Group II (n = 31) included 25-day old hamsters, each inoculated with 0.03 ml of 1:10 diluted virus. This group was sacrificed 6, 13, 17, and 31 DPI. Clinical and histological evidence of measles encephalitis was present in all infected hamsters. Retinal lesions varied with the age of the animals at the time of inoculation. Retinal folds were observed in the 2-day old group and represented one form of retinal dysplasia. In the 25-day old group, however, earliest retinal involvement was in the form of hemorrhages, followed by focal retinitis in animals sacrificed 6-17 DPI. Measles keratitis was noted only in animals sacrificed 6 DPI. In 25-day old hamsters, measles keratitis and retinal hemorrhages represented the acute manifestations, whereas retinitis occurred later. However, ocular involvement did not correlate with the degree of severity of measles encephalitis.

Ocular Tropism of Respiratory Viruses

“…Therefore, measles-rubella vaccine can prevent two significant causes of blindness or visual impairment in developing countries. Demonstrating experimentally the ability of these viruses to cause ocular complications, measles retinopathy and keratitis have been observed in the hamster model, and rubella virus has been found to replicate in both in vitro and in vivo ocular models (159)(160)(161)(162)(163).…”

Ocular Findings in Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis

“…An animal study also found that ocular involvement did not correlate with the degree of severity of measles encephalitis. 15 Nevertheless, although statistically insignificant, Table 2 shows that patients with stage III disease had more ocular involvement than those in the other three stages. On the other hand, ocular involvement was more likely to be associated with the duration of neurologic symptoms (p = .05).…”

Cadmium contaminated soil affects retinogenesis in lizard embryos

“…The dysplasia observed in Podarcis embryos is represented by marked retinal folding but there is no evidence indicating that laminar organization is also affected. Various degrees of retinal dysplasia are observed in experimental animals after a number of traumas ranging from viral infection (Khalifa et al, ), to vitamin shortage (Grondona et al, ) or drug exposure (Kuwata et al, ). Retinal folding has been reported to occur as a consequence of fixation (Szczech et al, ; French et al, ).…”