Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the interest of an ophthalmic eyedrop preparation containing a myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) inhibitor, ML-7, in the treatment of ocular surface. The local protective effect on the inflammation and the increase of corneal permeability induced by benzalkonium (BAK) was evaluated.
Methods: An ocular instillation of 10 lL BAK at a concentration of 0.1% in PBS was performed on rats. The eyes were rinsed with sterilized water, 10 minutes after BAK preceded by instillation at T -24, -12, and -0.5 hours of 10 lL ofML-7: 100 μg (10 μL) into a gel form vehicle. All animals were sacrificed 6 hours after BAK instillation. The eyes were isolated for study in a masked manner. The ocular surface inflammation was assessed by measuring the inflammatory cell infiltration by a histologic quantitative analysis and for total ocular myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity. The tight junction permeability was tested.
Results: Instillation of 0.1% BAK increased the inflammation of the eye. The quantitative analysis showed an increase in the number of eosinophil and neutrophil polynuclears, and MPO activity. Pretreatment with ML-7 reduced inflammation (P < 0.05). The vehicle alone produced no notable effects. BAK instillation also thickened the fluorescent corneal front on frozen sections, indicating an increase of tight junction permeability. Pretreatment with ML-7 suppressed BAK-induced alterations of paracellular permeability while the vehicle had no visible effects.
Conclusions: Our study indicates that the inhibition of corneal cytoskeleton contraction by an MLCK inhibitor prevents BAK-induced ocular inflammatory response, and that ML-7 may be a new and original preparation in the treatment of ocular surface pathologies.