Inter- and Intramolecular Epitope Spreading in Equine Recurrent Uveitis

Abstract

Inter- and intramolecular spreading was detectable in a spontaneous model of recurrent uveitis. The shifts in immunoreactivity could account for the remitting-relapsing character of the disease.

Altered expression of talin 1 in peripheral immune cells points to a significant role of the innate immune system in spontaneous autoimmune uveitis

“…ERU is characterized by recurrent inflammatory attacks of leukocytes to the inner eye, interrupted by variable periods of quiescent stages [6]. Leukocytes get activated in the periphery and transmigrate the blood-retinal barrier to attack retinal proteins.…”

“…In addition, epitope spreading is thought to be essential for disease progression as well as inflammatory relapses in a variety of diseases, including autoimmune uveitis [6]. Thus, epitope spreading in autoimmune diseases results in the detection of an increasing diversity of target antigens in the immune response pattern against various target antigens over time [4,6].…”

Complement factor B expression profile in a spontaneous uveitis model

“…It currently represents the only spontaneous model for human autoimmune uveitis (Deeg et al, 2006b). Autoimmune reactions are directed towards retinaexpressed proteins in both humans and horses (Deeg et al, 2006a;Deeg et al, 2006b;Deeg et al, 2004;Deeg et al, 2002b;Nussenblatt, 1990). The remitting-relapsing disease of the inner eye is characterized by the breakdown of the blood-retinal barrier, infiltration by inflammatory cells and tissue destruction finally leading to blindness Deeg et al, 2001;Hauck et al, 2007).…”

Equine Recurrent Uveitis – A Spontaneous Horse Model of Uveitis

“…Infiltrating T cells are detectable in high proportions in the inner eyes of horses with ERU, forming even lymphoid follicles in the iris stroma [2] . Analyses of autoantigen and epitope specificity of these autoaggressive T cells revealed evidence for inter-and intramolecular epitope spreading [3,4] . Immune reactions of horses were directed against the major retinal autoantigens S-antigen (S-Ag) [5,6] and interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein (IRBP) [6,7] but also against other proteins expressed in the retinal proteome [8] .…”