From ocular immune privilege to primary autoimmune diseases of the eye

After the discovery of ocular immune privilege, exhaustive research has been performed, and advances have been made in the field of ocular immunology. Currently, it is clear that local and systemic pathways are involved in maintaining a well-preserved environment to guarantee normal vision. The development of autoimmunity in the eye is still a subject of research; however, it has been suggested that microglial cells could act as a gateway for initiating autoimmunity. Moreover, based on the fact that ocular involvement in systemic autoimmune diseases is well described, we aimed to collect and describe ocular diseases with a proposed primary autoimmune pathogenic mechanism. It should be noted that the autoimmune classification in several entities is a topic of discussion among authors.