The second edition of Immune ‘Response and the Eye’ highlights recent insights into the ‘dangerous compromise’ between the immune system and the eye, which protects the eye against pathogens while limiting inflammation and immune-mediated injury to ocular tissues with little or no regenerative potential. It discusses the broad spectrum of physiological, immunological, anatomical, and biochemical adaptations that conspire to closely regulate the tone and tenor of immune responses in the eye. This volume further describes immune-mediated diseases that occur when the compromise between the immune system and the eye is breached. This breakdown in immune privilege threatens the vision of millions each year. Finally, recent advances in ocular immunology are presented, which offer potential therapeutic applications in corneal and retinal transplantation and in the management of blinding autoimmune diseases of the eye. Eye researchers, ophthalmologists and immunologists will appreciate the state-of-the-art and authoritative information presented in ‘Immune Response and the Eye’.
221 - 227: Glaucoma
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Published:2007
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Book Series: Chemical Immunology and Allergy
Gülgün Tezel, Martin B. Wax, 2007. "Glaucoma", Immune Response and the Eye, J.Y. Niederkorn, H.J. Kaplan
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Abstract
Glaucoma is a chronic neurodegenerative disease of the optic nerve, in which apoptosisof retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and progressive loss of optic nerve axons result in structuraland functional deficits in glaucoma patients. This neurodegenerative disease is indeed a leadingcause of blindness in the world. The glaucomatous neurodegenerative environment hasbeen associated with the activation of multiple pathogenic mechanisms for RGC death andaxon degeneration. Growing evidence obtained from clinical and experimental studies overthe last decade also strongly suggests the involvement of the immune system in this neurodegenerativeprocess. Paradoxically, the roles of the immune system in glaucoma have beendescribed as either neuroprotective or neurodestructive. A balance between beneficial immunityand harmful autoimmune neurodegeneration may ultimately determine the fate of RGCsin response to various stressors in glaucomatous eyes. Based on clinical data in humans, ithas been proposed that one form of glaucoma may be an autoimmune neuropathy, in whichan individual’s immune response facilitates a somatic and/or axonal degeneration of RGCsby the very system which normally serves to protect it against tissue stress.
