Customized Rodent Models of Infectious Keratitis

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Bacterial/fungal keratitis is a potentially blinding corneal infection, and in vivo (animal) models help most accurately capture the complex pathological outcome. As an ocular disease model provider, Ace Therapeutics provides global customers with complete rodent keratitis models for evaluating novel antimicrobial therapies and identifying therapeutic mechanisms. Thanks to our cutting-edge technology and competitive pricing, we are happy to help our clients achieve their research goals.

Rodent Models of Infectious Keratitis

What Is Infectious Keratitis?

Infectious keratitis is the fifth leading cause of blindness in humans, and it is a potentially sight-threatening disease. Major predisposing factors include chronic ocular surface disease, prolonged contact lens wear, ocular trauma, systemic disease, previous keratitis, previous surgery, previous use of topical steroids or traditional drug eye drops, and other ocular defects. Infectious keratitis can generally be divided into microbial keratitis (bacteria, fungi, or parasites) and viral keratitis (herpes virus). The main clinical symptoms are blurred vision, redness, pain, sensitivity to light, tearing, discharge, and decreased vision.

Fig. 1. Common inoculation methods for inducing fungal keratitis. (Montgomery ML et al., 2020)

Service Overview

Keratitis is a disease of the cornea that can be caused by direct infection or immune-related complications by viruses, bacteria, fungi, yeasts, and amoebae. Over the past several years, Ace Therapeutics has developed several rodent models of infectious keratitis. These models allow researchers to analyze corneal disease and develop new treatments to prevent corneal damage.

Explore the Ace Therapeutics' Rodent Models of Infectious Keratitis

Staphylococcus aureus / pseudomonas aeruginosa-induced bacterial keratitis, and candida albicans-induced fungal keratitis has been widely used to elucidate predisposing factors and the development of antimicrobial therapies associated with human keratitis disease. In order to meet the needs of different customers, we provide the following rodent models of infectious keratitis, including but not limited to:

Staphylococcus aureus keratitis-induced mice model
Pseudomonas aeruginosa keratitis-induced mice model
Fungal keratitis-induced mice model

Ace Therapeutics scientists injure the cornea by scraping it with a 26G or 30G needle and topically adding a fungal/bacterial inoculum. Alternatively, inject the fungal/bacterial inoculum directly into the ocular stroma using a hypodermic needle through the epithelium. Alternatively, different keratitis models can be induced by scratching the cornea and adding a fungal/bacterial inoculum followed by the immobilization of a contact lens on the ocular surface.

Transgenic mouse model of infectious keratitis

In addition to the above, Ace Therapeutics also provides rodent infectious keratitis models in which specific genes are deleted, altered, or controlled to help customers study disease-related host factors.

Tab. 1. Ace Therapeutics' transgenic mouse model of infectious keratitis.

Gene	Mouse model
IL-4	IL-4^−/−
IL-10	IL-10^−/−
IL-6	IL-6^−/−
MyD88	MyD88^−/−
caspase-1	caspase-1 ^−/−
CXCR2	CXCR2 ^−/−

Our Capabilities

Ace Therapeutics researchers also provide the following a series of supporting inspection services, including research, to successfully construct rodent models of infectious keratitis and comprehensively evaluate candidates' antibacterial efficacy, including but not limited to:

Slit-lamp eye examination (clinical scoring)
Histopathological evaluation
Corneal integrity image evaluation
Flow cytometry
Fluorescein staining

Ace Therapeutics is committed to providing comprehensive preclinical keratitis models and expertise to facilitate the development of ophthalmic products for customers around the world. If you are interested in our services or need more detailed information, please feel free to contact us. Our experienced scientists are ready to help you!

References

Cabrera-Aguas M, Khoo P, Watson SL. Infectious keratitis: A review. Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2022, 50(5):543-562.
Marquart ME. Animal models of bacterial keratitis. J Biomed Biotechnol. 2011, 2011:680642.
Montgomery ML, Fuller KK. Experimental Models for Fungal Keratitis: An Overview of Principles and Protocols. Cells. 2020, 9(7):1713.

For Research Use Only.

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