cells Article Severity of Experimental Autoimmune Uveitis Is Reduced by Pretreatment with Live Probiotic Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 Otakar Dusek 1, Alena Fajstova 2, Aneta Klimova 1, Petra Svozilkova 1 , Tomas Hrncir 3 , Miloslav Kverka 2,* , Stepan Coufal 2 , Johan Slemin 2, Helena Tlaskalova-Hogenova 2, John V. Forrester 4,5,6 and Jarmila Heissigerova 1 1 Department of Ophthalmology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and General University Hospital in Prague, 128 08 Prague, Czech Republic;
[email protected] (O.D.);
[email protected] (A.K.);
[email protected] (P.S.);
[email protected] (J.H.) 2 Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v.v.i., 142 20 Prague, Czech Republic;
[email protected] (A.F.);
[email protected] (S.C.);
[email protected] (J.S.);
[email protected] (H.T.-H.) 3 Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v.v.i., 549 22 Novy Hradek, Czech Republic;
[email protected] 4 Section of Immunology and Infection, Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, UK;
[email protected] 5 Immunology and Virology Program, Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia 6 Centre for Experimental Immunology, Lions Eye Institute, Nedlands, Western Australia 6009, Australia * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +420-24106-2452 Abstract: Non-infectious uveitis is considered an autoimmune disease responsible for a significant burden of blindness in developed countries and recent studies have linked its pathogenesis to dys- regulation of the gut microbiota.