EXPERIMENTAL ARTHRITIS AND UVEITIS IN RATS ASSOCIATED WITH MYCOBACTERIUM-BUTYRICUM

Objective. To determine if the anterior uveitis associated with adjuva nt arthritis (AA) in the rat can be passively transferred with arthrit is to syngeneic recipients using spleen cells or T cell lines prepared from animals given complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) and Mycobacterium butyricum (M. butyricum) in incomplete Freund's adjuvant (IFA). Metho ds. Spleen cells from Lewis or Lewis SsN rats given IFA, CFA, type I c ollagen in IFA (CI-IFA), or type II collagen in IFA (CII-IFA) were adm inistered to naive rats or rats treated with pertussis toxin or bacter ial endotoxin. Three CD4+ T cell lines, propagated from CFA injected r ats and maintained in vitro with M. butyricum (M-1), bovine proteoglyc an (PR-l) or an extract of M. butyricum (MBE-1) were administered to n aive or immunosuppressed rats. The arthritogenic and uveitogenic prope rties of these cell preparations and intradermal MBE-IFA, CII-IFA and intraperitoneal (ip) M. butyricum without adjuvant were evaluated. Res ults. Uveitis was observed in 15/69 (22 %) arthritic rats given CFA. S pleen cells prepared from CFA injected rats caused arthritis in 55 (82 %) and uveitis in 2 (3 %) of 67 cell recipients. Uveitis occurred in 2/6 cell recipients pretreated with bacterial endotoxin. Neither uveit is nor arthritis was observed in rats given IFA (0/6) or spleen cells prepared from rats given IFA (0/27), CI-IFA (0/6), or CII-IFA (0/28). CII-IFA produced polyarthritis in 5/6 rats, but no uveitis. CII-IFA in duced arthritis associated uveitis in 1/15 animals receiving spleen ce lls from rats given CII-IFA, but not those given CI-IFA (0/3) or IFA ( 0/13). Uveitis was observed in one recipient of the M-1 T cell line an d in 2 recipients of the PR-1 T cell line. Immunization with 400 mu g of MBE-IFA induced uveitis but not arthritis in 3/11 animals. The MBE specific T cell line was neither arthritogenic nor uveitogenic. A high frequency (5/6) of uveitis accompanied arthritis in male Lewis rats g iven ip M. butyricum. Arthritis occurred in 4/10 female Lewis rats giv en ip M. butyricum and 2 arthritic animals also developed uveitis. Con clusion. Uveitis occurs infrequently in arthritic rats given spleen ce lls from CFA injected animals. The ip administration of M. butyricum c onstitutes a novel disease model in which the immunopathological relat ionships between arthritis and uveitis may be more reliably studied.