Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Dendritic Cell Autophagy Contributes To Herpes Simplex Virus-Driven Stromal Keratitis And Immunopathology, Yike Jiang, Xiaotang Yin, Patrick M. Stuart, David A. Leib

Dartmouth Scholarship

Herpetic stromal keratitis (HSK) is a blinding ocular disease that is initiated by HSV-1 and characterized by chronic inflammation in the cornea. Although HSK immunopathology of the cornea is well documented in animal models, events preceding this abnormal inflammatory cascade are poorly understood. In this study, we have examined the activation of pathological CD4T cells in the development of HSK. Dendritic cell autophagy (DC-autophagy) is an important pathway regulating ma- jor histocompatibility complex class II (MHCII)-dependent antigen presentation and proper CD4T cell activation during infectious diseases. Using DC-autophagy-deficient mice, we found that DC-autophagy significantly and specifically contributes to HSK disease …