1994 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Immunological and molecular biological studies of chronic inflammation
| Project/Area Number |
05671480
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
|
| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
|---|
| Research Field |
Ophthalmology
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Tokyo Women's Medical College |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
TAKAMURA Etsuko Tokyo Women's Medical College, 医学部, 講師 (90197202)
|
|---|
| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
TAKAMURA Etsuko Tokyo Women's Medical College (90197202)
TAKAMURA Etsuko Tokyo Women's Medical College (90197202)
TAKAMURA Etsuko Tokyo Women's Medical College (90197202)
TAKAMURA Etsuko Tokyo Women's Medical College (90197202)
TAKAMURA Etsuko Tokyo Women's Medical College (90197202)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
1993 – 1994
|
| Keywords | Ocular surface / Cytokine / Inflammatory cells / Reverse-transcripts polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) / Brush cytology / Sjogren's syndrome / Allergic conjunctivitis / RANTES |
|---|
| Research Abstract |
To discover the mechanism of ocular surface chronic inflammation in patients with dry eye and allergic conjunctivitis, we analyzed 1) quantitative cellular evaluation of inflammatory cells in the conjunctival epithelium, 2) expression of cytokine mRNA in dry eye patients using reverse-transcripts polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), 3) presence of cytokine in the tear of patients with allergic conjunctivitis.
1) Chronic inflammation of the ocular surface increased in severity with increased percentage of neutorophils found in the conjunctival epithelium. We evaluated the effect of pretreatment with anti-allergic eye drops for seasonal allergic conjunctivitis. In pretreated patients, who started applying ketotifen eye drops two weeks before the cedar season, the percentage of neutorophils during the season were significantly less than that of non pretreated patients. We concluded that pretreatment with anti-allergic eye drops for allergic conjunctivitis is effective in suppressing inflammatory cell migrations and also decreases clinical symptoms.
2) In Sjogren's syndrome, IL-2 and IL-6 mRNA expression in the conjunctival cells were found to be significantly higher than in dry eye patients. No IL-2 and IL-6 mRNA were detected in normal conjunctival epithelium. These results suggest inflammatory cytokines are expressed in elevated levels in the conjunctival epithelia of SS patients. Local inflammatory processes in the conjunctiva may play an important role in the ocular surface damage of SS similar to that seen in lacrimal glands and salivary glands.
3) RANTES is a peptide that belongs to the chemokine beta family, and may act at inflamed lesions by recruiting eosinophils, memory T cells and monocytes from the circulation. We examined the presence of RANTES in the tears using ELISA.RANTES was detectable in the diluted tears of patients with allergic conjunctivitis, while no RANTES presence in the tears of normal controls was observed.
|
