Curative effect of intravitreal injection of infliximab on experimental autoimmune uveitis

Objective To investigate the curative effect of intravitreal injection of infliximab on experimental autoimmune uveitis(EAU).Methods Thirty-two female New Zealand rabbits were randomly divided into three groups.Treatment group had 16 rabbits,the model control group and normal control group had 8 rabbits respectively.EAU animal model of acute ocular inflammation was induced by bovine serum albumin(BSA).The model control group and treatment group received intravitreal injection and intravenous injection of BSA.The day after the models were operated successfully,the model control group,treatment group and normal control group were applied with NS(0.1 mL),10 g·L-1 infliximab(0.1 mL) and NS(0.1 mL) through intravitreal injection respectively.Each group was injected once.The aqueous humor of both eyes were collected separately before the rabbits were sacrificed before operation and 5 days,10 days and 15 days after operation.Meanwhile,the ocular expression was examined.ELISA method was used to detect contents of tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α) and interleukin-2(IL-2).The both eyes were used for histopathological examination.Results Before modeling,the level of TNF-α and IL-2 in aqueous humor among three groups was no statistical difference.At 5 days,10 days and 15 days after operation,the model control group and treatment group were significantly higher than normal control group.No significant difference was found between the model control group and treatment group at 5 days after operation(P0.05).Furthermore,at 10 days and 15 days after operation,the level of TNF-α in the model control group were(652.29±102.76)ng·L-1 and(372.63±47.59)ng·L-1,while in the treatment group the level was declined significantly to(395.88±48.97)ng·L-1 and(140.44±41.69)ng·L-1(P0.05).The level of IL-2 declined significantly to(40.89±8.81)ng·L-1 and(26.48±7.71)ng·L-1 compared to the model control group(85.55±7.74)ng·L-1 and(64.10±7.78)ng·L-1.There were no signs or pathologic change in all the rabbits in the normal control group.The histopathological examination of treatment group suggested that the inflammation significantly relieved compared to the model control group.Conclusion Infliximab can obviously inhibit the formation of TNF-α and IL-2 in aqueous humor of BAS induced EAU models,and release EAU inflammatory reaction and histological injury that can be applied to control EAU.