Equine recurrent uveitis--a spontaneous horse model of uveitis.

Equine recurrent uveitis (ERU) is an autoimmune disease that occurs with a high prevalence (10%) in horses. ERU represents the only reliable spontaneous model for human autoimmune uveitis. We already identified and characterized novel autoantigens (malate dehydrogenase, recoverin, CRALBP) by analyzing the autoantibody-binding pattern of horses affected by spontaneous recurrent uveitis (ERU) to the retinal proteome. CRALBP also seems to be relevant to human autoimmune uveitis. Proteomic screening of vitreous and retinal samples from ERU diseased cases in comparison to healthy controls has led to the identification of a series of differentially regulated proteins, which are functionally linked to the immune system and the maintenance of the blood-retinal barrier.