Ординатура / Офтальмология / Английские материалы / Antigen Presenting Cells and the Eye_Zierhut, Rammensee, Streilein_2007

Dedication

During the course of one’s life, each of us has been influenced by a special person who has had an enormous impact in shaping who we are. For some, it was a teacher who stimulated our interests at a crucial time in our education. For others, it was a coach who gave us confidence and challenged us to reach higher. For hundreds of us, it was Wayne Streilein, who was a teacher, mentor, collaborator, colleague, and, most of all, a devoted friend.

Wayne possessed too many attributes to summarize in this brief overview, but let me highlight a few special qualities that have had a lasting impact on me, and I am sure hundreds of others. Wayne had the capacity to evoke interesting insights from everyone, whether it was a Nobel Laureate, such as Sir Peter Medawar, or the animal technician who changed the bedding in the mouse cages. Wayne would engage each of us in thought-provoking conversations and we would walk away feeling as if we were the most important person in his life and that we possessed profound insights into issues that we had not previously contemplated. When he entered a room, the conversations would soon elevate to a higher level, and each person would find himself feeling that he had something important to add to the discussions. He simply brought out the best in everyone.

Wayne had the same impact on the Ettal Research Workshops. He not only offered brilliant perspectives on the topic under discussion, but, equally important, he evoked insights from the participants that they had not previously considered. He created a synergism that energized each workshop and contributed to its success. His untimely death has created a void in the Ettal Workshops, and each of us who had the privilege to know him, still miss him immensely. It is with profound affection and admiration that we dedicate the proceedings of this workshop to his memory.

Jerry Niederkorn

Manfred Zierhut

Hans-Georg Rammensee

iii

Preface

Antigen-presenting cells are indispensable for mediating the induction of a specific immune reaction. Various populations that differ in their location and activation grade have already been described.

This book provides a general evaluation of our understanding of antigenpresenting cells, and assesses their importance for the physiological and pathological condition of the eye. Autoimmune disorders that often lead to severe impairment of the eye’s functions, for example, can be invoked by the presentation of self peptides by the antigen-presenting cells to the T-cell receptor complex. An analysis of this cascade may help to identify the initiating autoantigens. Depending on the activation status, dendritic cells can induce a T-cell reaction or, in contrast, even induce tolerance.

Until recently, antigen-presenting cells were thought to play a limited role only in the external segment of the eye, but the use of more refined detection methods has revealed a whole spectrum of different dendritic cells that are localized in the iris and the choroid. As far as the lacrimal gland and the anterior segment are concerned, the research is concentrating on the characterization of factors influencing ocular antigen-presenting cells. In addition, the role of antigen-presenting cells in the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue in the physiological and pathological state, as found in the dry eye syndrome and infectious disorders, is under investigation. The significance of antigen-presenting cells in corneal disease, especially in the case of transplantation, is also of major importance. In recent years, multiple new subgroups of antigen-presenting cells have been detected in the cornea, but at the present time their respective role still remains unclear.

Antigen-presenting cells of the posterior eye segment are becoming the focus of increased interest because they appear to be strongly involved in two major disorders of the eye: uveitis and age-related maculopathy.

v

9.Lacrimal Epithelium Mediates Hormonal Influences on AntigenPresenting Cells and Lymphocyte Cycles in the Ocular

Janet Liversidge, Patrick Tighe, Andrew Dick, and John V. Forrester