Abstract
Purpose :
Allergic conjunctivitis responses range from immediate hypersensitivity reactions involving mast cell degranulation to late phase responses involving lymphocyte and eosinophil infiltration. Due to the vast range of allergic responses, we sought to determine if there are any indicative differences in tear cytokine profiles among atopic individuals prior to allergen challenge.
Methods :
Tears were collected from three atopic and three non-atopic human subjects outside of the allergy season during an internal pilot study. Tears were collected from both eyes at the tear meniscus, taking care not to touch the lid or corneal surface, and not to induce reflex tearing. Samples were dispensed into a microcentrifuge tube, immediately capped, and placed on dry ice. Tears were collected at baseline from all subjects, and additionally from atopic subjects post- allergen challenge. An allergic reaction was induced using conjunctival allergen challenge (Ora CAC®) system. Tears were analyzed for IFN-γ, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6. IL-8, IL-10, IL-12p70, IL-13, and TNF-α using the MSD V-PLEX Platform and Meso QuickPlex SQ 120 plate reader.
Results :
Even prior to allergen challenge, IL-6 and IL-8 were increased in atopic baseline tears compared to non-atopic baseline tears. In one late phase responder, the cytokine profile at baseline displayed elevated IL-6 compared to the baseline of the remaining atopic subjects. Differences in changes in IL-6 and IL-8 were also seen among the atopic subjects post-allergen challenge. The late phase allergy responder showed a much larger change in IL-6 post-CAC compared to the other atopic subjects at the same post-CAC time-points.
Conclusions :
Allergic subjects who manifest a late phase response might have a different tear cytokine profile than atopic subjects who do not. Differences can be seen even prior to allergen challenge, when compared to other atopic subjects and to non-atopic subjects. This data may be valuable in establishing predictive profiles of atopic individuals for study sorting, and may provide clues as to why certain atopic individuals respond poorly to traditional anti-histamine treatments.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.