Fig. 1
From: Age-associated antigen-presenting cell alterations promote dry-eye inducing Th1 cells
Aging increases intraepithelial conjunctival APCs. a Apical surface of accumulated images of laser confocal microscopy of whole mount conjunctiva stained for CD11b or CD11c (green) in 8-week (W) and 24-month (24 M) old mice showing using the Z-stack function. Nuclei were stained using propidium iodide (in red, n = 2/group). b, c. Representative images of palpebral conjunctival cryosections stained for CD11b, or CD11c or MHC II (red) in (b) that were used to generate the graphs in (c). Insets are a high magnification of the demarcated area. c Intraepithelial conjunctival APCs were counted only if present among epithelial cells or immediately adjacent to the basal membrane. Red positive cells that were present in the stroma were not counted. Each point represents one animal (n = five to seven right eyes/age). d Whole thickness biopsies of conjunctiva were lysed, and gene expression analysis was performed. Relative fold expression changes of C-C motif chemokine ligand (CCL) -2, -3, -4, -22 and C-X-C motif chemokine ligand (CXCL)-13 mRNA in the conjunctiva. Bar graphs show means ± SD of five-to-six samples per age, biological replicates from two independent experiments were averaged. ****P < 0.0001 Mann-Whitney U comparison test
