Injury to a vitamin A-deficient cornea leads to severe acute inflammation often culminating in ulceration. We report on possible regulatory mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of corneal inflammation in vitamin A deficiency. Thymocyte comitogenic assay and interleukin (IL)-6 induction in corneal fibroblasts have shown that thermally injured and mechanically abraded vitamin A-deficient rat corneas produce much higher levels of an IL-1-like factor as compared with uninjured or injured normal control corneas. This was confirmed by antibody capture enzyme immunoassays, which detected high levels of IL-la and IL-1 (3 in injured vitamin A-deficient corneas. To our knowledge this is the first report describing the induction of IL-1 in the vitamin A-deficient cornea by thermal and mechanical injuries. When mechanically injured corneas were screened for chemotactic activity, they were found to contain significantly higher levels of a chemoattractant as compared with similarly injured, normal control corneas. Chemotactic activity [expressed as a percentage of a known chemotactic tripeptide, formylmethionyl- leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP), found in medium harvested from vitamin A-deficient corneas] averaged 58.8 ± 8.9% (SEM) as compared with 12.6 ± 5.4% in medium conditioned by normal corneas. Checkerboard analysis confirmed that the activity in vitamin A-deficient cornea conditioned medium was chemotactic and not chemokinetic. These results demonstrate a correlation between IL-1 levels and severity of inflammation in the injured vitamin A-deficient rat cornea.