Endotoxin-induced uveitis in rodents

Abstract

Uveitis can affect individuals of all ages, genders, and races and accounts for 10–15% of all cases of blindness. Uveitis represents a diverse array of intraocular inflammatory conditions that can be associated with complications from autoimmune diseases, bacterial infections, viral infections, chemical injuries, and metabolic issues. In rodents, endotoxin-induced uveitis (EIU) is an efficient experimental model to study pathological mechanisms associated with the disease and evaluate the pharmacological efficacy of potential new drug agents. In the EIU model, uveitis is characterized by clinically relevant inflammation, including inflammatory exudates and cells infiltrated into the anterior and vitreous eye chambers. EIU in small animal models, including rats, mice, and rabbits, is characterized by a short-lived uveal inflammation. This inflammation can be facilitated using bacterial endotoxins, such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In this chapter, we present a reliable, reproducible, and simplified protocol to induce EIU in mice. This method is flexible and can be applied for EIU induction in other small animals and rodents.