Abstract
Purpose: :
High-mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1), an innate danger signal protein with pro-inflammatory cytokine-like properties, is recently found to exacerbate pathological conditions of diverse infections including sepsis. However, its relationship with endophthalmitis remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine whether HMGB1 is involved in endophthalmitis.
Methods: :
Vitreous levels of HMGB1 were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 10 eyes with endophthalmitis and in 12 eyes with idiopathic macular holes served as controls. Formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue sections of an enucleated eye with endophthalmitis and a control eye with recurrent conjunctival malignant melanoma were analyzed by immunohistochemistry with an anti-HMGB1 antibody.
Results: :
The vitreous HMGB1 level of the patients with endophthalmitis was 13.96 ± 17.17 ng/mL (mean ± standard deviation), which was significantly higher than that of the controls (0.236 ± 0.128 ng/mL; P = .0006, Mann-Whitney U-test). There were significant correlations between HMGB1 level and disease duration (P= .0097, R=0.862, Spearman’s rank correlation test), presenting visual acuity (P= .0177, R=0.790), and final visual acuity (P= .0086, R=0.876). Strong HMGB1 expression was observed in the eye with endophthalmitis, particularly in the extranuclear region of the retina and the choroid with infiltrating inflammatory cells.
Conclusions: :
Our findings suggest that HMGB1 may play an important role in the pathogenesis of endophthalmitis.
Keywords: endophthalmitis • inflammation • cytokines/chemokines