[Phospholipase A and lysophosphatidylcholine in the pathogenesis of "permeability cataracts" (author's transl)].

Phospholipase A and Lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) have been shown harmful for normal lens permeability, inducing an efflux of intracellular macromolecules in organ cultures. These findings, superimposible to what has been shown in the lens for complement-dependent immune damage, along with the hypothesis that the cytotoxicity of complement is mediated by a phospholipase, are considered relevant as far as the pathogenesis of complicated cataracts in "immune" uveitis and the selfmaintenance of recurrent autoimmune (to lens proteins) anterior uveitis are concerned.