Gut bacteria ocular disease

UNLABELLED: Wearing contact lenses has been identified as a risk factor for the development of eye conditions such as giant papillary conjunctivitis and keratitis. We hypothesized that wearing contact lenses is associated with changes in the ocular microbiota. We compared the bacterial communities of the conjunctiva and skin under the eye from 58 subjects and analyzed samples from 20 subjects (9 lens wearers and 11 non-lens wearers) taken at 3 time points using a 16S rRNA gene-based sequencing technique (V4 region; Illumina MiSeq)...

Metagenomic analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA has been used to profile microbial communities at high resolution, and to examine their association with host diet or diseases. We examined the oral and gut microbiome composition of two captive koalas to determine whether bacterial communities are unusual in this species, given that their diet consists almost exclusively of Eucalyptus leaves. Despite a highly specialized diet, koala oral and gut microbiomes were similar in composition to the microbiomes from the same body regions of other mammals...

The ocular surface epithelium serves a critical function as the defensive front line of the innate immune system. While the detection of microbes is arguably its most important task, an exaggerated host defense reaction to endogenous bacterial flora may initiate and perpetuate inflammatory mucosal responses. The ability of cells to recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) mainly depends on the expression of a family of Toll-like receptors (TLRs). A healthy ocular surface is not inflammatory, even though ocular surface epithelium is in constant contact with bacteria and bacterial products...

Idiopathic Uveitis (IU) may occur as either an isolated ocular disease or with other systemic diseases such as Crohn's Disease (CD). As many as 33% of CD patients demonstrate IU, and frequently their gut and IU course and severity are similar. Rifampin produces remissions of isolated IU, and Rifampin has been used to treat gut CD with varying success. In this investigation 4 CD patients, whose gut but not IU had partially responded to corticosteroids, the addition of Rifampin was associated with improvement in both their CD Activity Index and IU, allowing steroid discontinuation; Rifampin withdrawal was associated with exacerbations of both gut disease and IU; and re-institution of Rifampin was associated with another gut and IU disease remission...

Crohn's disease (CD) is an idiopathic chronic inflammatory gut disease with frequent extragut inflammatory manifestations in the eyes, orbit, lungs, joints, and skin. A bacterial cause of CD is suspected, but cultivation of a specific pathogen has not been forthcoming. Mollicute-like organisms (MLOs) were recently reported to cause human chronic ocular inflammatory disease. Inoculation of this MLO into mouse eyelids produced chronic progressive granulomatous ocular and orbital inflammatory disease. In addition, MLOs disseminated to produce similar disease in the gut, heart, and lungs...

Uveitis is inflammation of the ocular vascular coats. Most uveitis is chronic, idiopathic, and considered to have an endogenous, possibly autoimmune pathogenesis. Chronic idiopathic uveitis occurs in isolation or with various systemic diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases. Using a transmission electron microscope vitreous leucocyte parasitizing and destroying mollicute-like organisms (MLO) are often found to cause chronic uveitis. Mollicutes are cell wall deficient bacteria. Mollicutes have a characteristic ultrastructural appearance...