Immunity to pathogenic fungi in the eye

Serena Abbondante; Sixto M Leal; Heather L Clark; Bridget Ratitong; Yan Sun; Li-Jun Ma; Eric Pearlman

doi:10.1016/j.smim.2023.101753

Immunity to pathogenic fungi in the eye

Semin Immunol. 2023 May:67:101753. doi: 10.1016/j.smim.2023.101753. Epub 2023 Apr 13.

Authors

Serena Abbondante¹, Sixto M Leal², Heather L Clark³, Bridget Ratitong⁴, Yan Sun⁵, Li-Jun Ma⁶, Eric Pearlman⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ophthalmology, and Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
² Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
³ University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester NY, USA.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute and Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.
⁶ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA.
⁷ Department of Ophthalmology, and Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA. Electronic address: eric.pearlman@uci.edu.

Abstract

Fusarium, Aspergillus and Candida are important fungal pathogens that cause visual impairment and blindness in the USA and worldwide. This review will summarize the epidemiology and clinical features of corneal infections and discuss the immune and inflammatory responses that play an important role in clinical disease. In addition, we describe fungal virulence factors that are required for survival in infected corneas, and the activities of neutrophils in fungal killing, tissue damage and cytokine production.

Keywords: Aspergillus; Candida; Cornea; Cytokines; Fungal infection; Fusarium; IL-1 alpha; IL-1 beta; Innate immunity; Keratitis; NADPH oxidase; Neutrophil; Nutritional immunity; Ocular infection; Reactive oxygen species.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cornea / microbiology
Cornea / pathology
Fungi
Fusarium* / physiology
Humans
Keratitis* / microbiology
Keratitis* / pathology
Neutrophils

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

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