Vessels in the eye of a person with uveitis. Image credit: Ying Chi, Chunying Guo, Yuan Peng, Lijun Qiao and Liu Yang (CC BY 4.0)
Uveitis is a form of inflammation in the eye. It can occur in response to infection, or when the immune system mistakenly attacks the eye, in what is known as autoimmune uveitis. In approximately 80 percent of cases, the front part of the eye is affected. During an inflammatory episode, the liquid inside the front part of the eye fills with immune cells, but the nature of these cells remains unknown. This is because uveitis is rare, and doctors cannot routinely take samples from inside the eyes of affected individuals to diagnose the disease. This lack of samples makes research into this disease challenging.
There are two main groups of immune cells that could be responsible for uveitis: myeloid cells and lymphoid cells. Myeloid cells form the first line of immune defense against infection by non-specifically attacking and removing pathogens . Lymphoid cells form the second line of immune defense, attacking specific pathogens. Lymphoid cells also have long-term memory, meaning they can ‘remember’ previous infections and fight them more effectively. Lymphoid cells receive instructions from a type of myeloid cell called a dendritic cell about what to attack. Dendritic cells relay their instructions to lymphoid cells using molecules called human leukocyte antigens (HLA). Autoimmune uveitis affecting the front part of the eye is common in individuals with an HLA type called HLA-B27, suggesting that communication between dendritic and lymphoid cells plays an important role in this type of inflammation.
To make the most of limited patient samples, Kasper et al. used single cell techniques to examine the immune cells from the fluid inside the eye. Six samples came from people with autoimmune uveitis, and one from a person with an eye infection. The infection sample contained mainly myeloid cells that might attack bacteria responsible for the infection. In contrast, the autoimmune uveitis samples contained mainly lymphoid cells. Of these samples, four were from individuals with the gene that codes for the HLA-B27 molecule. These samples had a unique pattern of immune cells, with more dendritic cells than the samples from individuals that did not have this gene.
This study included only a small number of individuals, but it shows that analysing single immune cells from the eye is possible in uveitis. This snapshot could help researchers understand the local immune response in the eye, and find an optimal treatment.
