Itaconate to Reduce Inflammation in Eye Infection

Article: Vision researchers at Wayne State discover new therapy to treat eye infections
Source: Wayne State University School of Medicine, via NEI
Published: May 18, 2021

Itaconate, a metabolite of the Kreb's cycle, may play a role in protecting the eye from excessive inflammation during eye infection. Naturally produced by host innate immune cells to counteract inflammation, itaconate is non-immunosuppressive, thus making it an ideal adjunct therapy to antibiotics for conditions such as bacterial endophthalmitis, one of the most common infections after eye surgery. Current treatment of endophthalmitis involves local or systemic antibiotics, which kill the bacteria but do not address inflammation. The researchers applied high-throughput techniques of transcriptomics and metabolomics to visualize global changes in genes and metabolites to study the pathobiology of endophthalmitis in animal and cell culture-based models. These techniques revealed a strong correlation between itaconate and the expression of a gene called immunoresponsive gene 1 (Irg-1). Using a large biobank of vitreous samples from endophthalmitis patients, the researchers found that itaconate was also elevated in these eyes. They next intend to investigate the potential of itaconate to treat inflammatory diseases such as uveitis, where current treatment with steroids could lead to worsening of microbial infections.

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Singh S, Singh PK, Jha A, et al. "Integrative metabolomics and transcriptomics identifies itaconate as an adjunct therapy to treat ocular bacterial infection." Cell Reports Medicine.  2(5). 18 May 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2021.100277