Temporal retinal transcriptome analysis in Staphylococcus aureus endophthalmitis

Bacterial endophthalmitis remains a devastating inflammatory disease associated with permanent vision loss. The mechanisms regulating inflammation to protect the eye remain elusive. Therefore, assessing the host immune response in bacterial endophthalmitis may provide new therapeutic targets. We used microarrays to determine the global profiling of up-regulated and downregulated gene expression in bacterial endophthalmitis. In the current study, we used a mouse model of S. aureus endophthalmitis to understand the transcriptomic changes. Briefly, endophthalmitis was induced in C57BL/6 mice by intravitreal injection of S. aureus (SA, RN6390 ~5000CFU/eye). In the Pam3 treatment group, Pam3 (0.1 μ g) was injected 24 h prior to SA injections. In the control group, the eyes were left either uninjected (control) or injected with sterile PBS (Veh control). The retinas were harvested at 3, 6, 12, and 24h post-infection. RNA was isolated using the RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen) and microarray was performed to determine the comprehensive transcriptomic changes with respect to control/veh. control.