What is it about?
Corneal nerves are damaged in dry eye disease. We found that in mice this occurs due to the adaptive immune response, specifically the activation of CD4+ T cells in the ocular surface. By contrast, the epithelial lining of the cornea is mainly affected by desiccation and innate immunity.
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Why is it important?
We identified CD4+ T cells as drivers of corneal nerve damage but not corneal epitheliopathy in dry eye, a disease with heterogeneous presentations. This is important in ophthalmology because specific treatments could be tailored to target the adaptive immune response or other aspects of the disease depending on the predominant corneal epithelial or nerve pathology and symptoms.
Perspectives
I hope this article improves our understanding of the contrasting signs and symptoms that dry eye patients suffer. This research led to unexpected findings for the whole team because the notion of adaptive immunity contributing to corneal epitheliopathy in this disease was assumed to be true at the start of the study. This work has changed the way I approach dry eye patients in the clinic.
Jeremias G Galletti
Academia Nacional de Medicina
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: CD4
+
T cells drive corneal nerve damage but not epitheliopathy in an acute aqueous-deficient dry eye model, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, November 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2407648121.
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