Graduate Students Twardy and Channappanavar Publish in the Journal Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science

Assistant Professor and CBR member Susmit Suvas studies immunology: how the immune system fights infections. He is assisted in this work by two graduate students in the Biomedical Sciences: Biological Communications PhD program: Brandon Twardy and Rudragouda Channappanavar. This team recently published in the November issue of the journal Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (Volume 52, Pages 8604-8613). The purpose of their study is “to determine whether substance P in herpes simplex virus-1 infected cornea regulates the severity of herpetic stromal keratitis lesions in a mouse model.” The herpes simplex virus-1 is responsible for, among other things, many cold sores, and can persist in the body by hiding from the immune system inside nerve cells. Herpetic Stromal Keratitis lesions are herpes simplex virus infections of the surface of the cornea of the eye, specifically of the stroma—a transparent layer of the cornea consisting largely of collagen fibers plus a few fibroblast cells responsible for repairing and maintaining the collagen. Substance P is a neuropeptide (a short chain of amino acids) that plays a role in the perception of pain. Suvas and his team “determined a significantly higher level of [substance P] in the corneas with severe [herpetic stromal keratitis lesions] in comparison with mild lesions.” They conclude that “[substance P] present in the corneal stroma of the eyes with severe [herpetic stromal keratitis] lesions are actively involved in orchestrating stromal tissue damage by exerting its action on both stromal keratocytes and infiltrating immune cell types.” Suvas’s laboratory is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.