Major retinal autoantigens remain stably expressed during all stages of spontaneous uveitis.

The researchers studied equine recurrent uveitis (ERU), a common, spontaneous autoimmune disease in horses, finding that the level of certain retinal autoantigens remain mostly unchanged during different stages of the disease.

Study on Equine Recurrent Uveitis (ERU)

• ERU is considered an important model for autoimmune diseases because of its spontaneous development and frequent occurrence in horses.
• The research study targeted the examination of the expression levels of three primary retinal autoantigens in healthy and ERU affected retinas.
• Autoantigens are proteins or other biological substances produced within an organism that can provoke an immune response.

Analyzing Retinal Proteomes

• Retinal proteomes from both, healthy and diseased (ERU) retinas, were analyzed.
• Findings indicated that the expression of three autoantigens – IRBP, S-antigen and cRALBP – remain almost unaffected in ERU cases.
• These results were confirmed using western blots and immunohistochemistry techniques, methodologies common in biomedical research for protein analysis and detection.

Physiological Expression Sites

• Despite the constant to increased expression of these autoantigens, there was a noticeable loss of their physiological expression sites within the retina.
• Rhodopsin, a major component of phototransduction (conversion of light into electrical signals) in photoreceptors, disappeared from damaged retinas.

Implications of the Study

• The results explain why repeated uveitis attacks still occur, even in severely damaged eyes.
• The findings highlight the need for further investigations into the biological pathways and regulations at work in autoimmune target tissues.