Transmission of chronic idiopathic vitritis in mice by inoculation of human vitreous containing leucocyte phagolysosomal bacteria-like bodies.

Vitreous humour from chronic idiopathic vitritis (CIV) patients containing 0.5-0.7 micron diameter bacteria-like bodies (BLB) in polymorphonuclear leucocytes was inoculated into the eyelids of 100 mice. 200 control mice received either eye-bank vitreous or saline. After 12 months, 53 mice that received CIV vitreous, but none of the controls, had clinical signs of ocular inflammation (p less than 0.05); 15 of the mice that received CIV vitreous and none of the controls had histological evidence of chronic deep ocular inflammation, including vitritis (p less than 0.05); 95 CIV-vitreous-inoculated and 38 control mice were dead (p less than 0.05); and 3/3 of the CIV-vitreous group, compared with 0/3 controls, that were killed for histological assessment had phagolysosomal BLB identical to those in the CIV-vitreous inocula. The findings indicate that the BLB are pathogenic for mice.