In vivo kinetics of GITR and GITR ligand expression and their functional significance in regulating viral immunopathology.

This report evaluates the role of interaction between glucocorticoid-induced tumor necrosis factor receptor (GITR) and GITR ligand (GITR-L) in the immuno-inflammatory response to infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV). Both GITR and GITR-L were transiently upregulated after ocular HSV infection, on antigen-specific T cells and antigen-presenting cells, respectively, in the draining lymph node (DLN). In addition, virus-specific T-cell responses in the DLN and spleen were enhanced by anti-GITR antibody treatment, an outcome expected to result in more severe inflammatory lesions. Intriguingly, the treatment resulted in significantly diminished T-cell-mediated ocular lesions. The explanation for these findings was that anti-GITR antibody treatment caused a reduced production of ocular MMP-9, a molecule involved in ocular angiogenesis, an essential step in the pathogenesis of herpetic keratitis. Our results are the first observations to determine in vivo kinetics of GITR and GITR-L expression after virus infection, and they emphasize the role of GITR-GITR-L interaction to regulate virus-induced immuno-inflammatory lesions.