Abstract
Lassa virus (LASV), a hemorrhagic fever virus endemic to West Africa, causes conjunctivitis in patients with acute disease. To examine ocular manifestations of LASV, we histologically examined eyes from infected guinea pigs. In fatal disease, LASV immunostaining was most prominent in the anterior uvea, especially in the filtration angle, ciliary body, and iris and in and around vessels in the bulbar conjunctiva and peripheral cornea, where it co-localized with an endothelial marker (platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule). Antigen was primarily associated with infiltration of T-lymphocytes around vessels in the anterior uvea and with new vessel formation at the peripheral cornea. In animals that exhibited clinical signs but survived infection, eyes had little to no inflammation and no LASV immunostaining 6 weeks after infection. Overall, in this model, LASV antigen was restricted to the anterior uvea and was associated with mild chronic inflammation in animals with severe disease but was not detected in survivors.
Highlights
Lassa virus (LASV) is the etiologic agent of Lassa fever (LF), a viral hemorrhagic fever endemic to West Africa
In viral hemorrhagic fever disease, ocular manifestations are not limited to LF and are well described for infection with Ebola virus (EBOV) [11,12], Marburg virus [13], and Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) [14,15,16]
We detected viral nucleic acids in the eyes of all guinea pigs that died of infection (9 of 10 guinea pigs infected with LASV-Josiah), ranging from 1.32 × to 6.71 × S-segment copies per μL of eluted RNA
Summary
Lassa virus (LASV) is the etiologic agent of Lassa fever (LF), a viral hemorrhagic fever endemic to West Africa. In viral hemorrhagic fever disease, ocular manifestations are not limited to LF and are well described for infection with Ebola virus (EBOV) [11,12], Marburg virus [13], and Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) [14,15,16]. The implications of viral persistence in the eye and other immunoprivileged sites have been highlighted in Ebola virus disease (EVD) [12,17]. We recently described nonlethal disease in Strain 13 guinea pigs infected with a 2015 isolate from a person with LF imported to New Jersey, USA, from Liberia (LASV 812673-LBR-USA-2015, or LASVNJ2015 [19]). LASV loads and distribution, and associated ocular histopathology, were assessed in these animals
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