Immune privilege is a special condition that some organs in our body have, like the eyes, that limits the immune system response in this part of the body. This makes the eyes the perfect environment to carry out research in some therapies to treat vision loss.
Our immune system protects us from infections and diseases. It is activated when it detects an external agent, such as a virus, producing antibodies to combat it. This is a defense system called the inflammatory immune response, because it causes inflammation and an increase in tissue temperature.
This response can be beneficial in counteracting some infections or diseases, but it can also be counterproductive in some situations. This is the case with organ transplants from donors; the body detects the organ as foreign and triggers an inflammatory response, which could cause the transplant to fail.
The immune privilege enjoyed by the eye and a few other areas of the body (brain, testicles, placenta, and fetus) limits the immune inflammatory response. The scientific community believes that this occurs to protect essential areas of the body from possible damage caused by these inflammatory responses, which, in the case of the eyes, could cause vision loss.
The eye’s immune privilege allows research to be conducted on certain therapies, such as stem cell implantation, which are less likely to be rejected. This technique has shown promising results in the treatment of vision loss.
One of the most successful ocular uses of immune privilege is corneal transplantation. Allografts (grafts from donors) of the cornea are 90% effective, without tissue compatibility and without systemic immunosuppressive therapy.
Despite its immune privilege, the eye can suffer autoimmune attacks (when the body attacks its own tissues for no apparent reason), making it vulnerable to certain diseases such as autoimmune uveitis. The mechanisms behind these types of attacks are not yet fully understood.
As has been widely demonstrated using experimental models of induced uveitis, a small number of effector T cells activated in the periphery or transferred can easily breach the privilege. For this reason, it appears that the concept of immune privilege must continue to be investigated, defined, and perhaps even revised.
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