Tears and aqueous humor from horses inoculated with Leptospira contain antibodies which bind to cornea.

An antigenic relationship between Leptospira interrogans and equine cornea was previously described by us. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was employed in the present work to investigate the existence of anti-leptospira and anti-cornea antibodies in tears, aqueous humor and serum from horses inoculated i.m. with those antigens. Ten days after a booster by the same route, antibodies that bind to microtiter plates, coated with an homogenate of either equine cornea or leptospira, were detected in those fluids and in the sera. At the same time, the corneas of the horses began to develop a diffuse opacity. This finding of anti-leptospira antibodies in equine tears and aqueous humor shows the pathway along which they arrive at the cornea and bind to it.