Bone marrow chimeras and c-fms conditional ablation (Mafia) mice reveal an essential role for resident myeloid cells in lipopolysaccharide/TLR4-induced corneal inflammation

Abstract

The mammalian cornea contains an extensive network of resident macrophages and dendritic cells. To determine the role of these cells in LPS-induced corneal inflammation, TLR4-/- mice were sublethally irradiated and reconstituted with bone marrow cells from either enhanced GFP (eGFP) +/C57BL/6 or eGFP+/TLR4-/- mice. The corneal epithelium was abraded, LPS was added topically, and cellular infiltration to the corneal stroma and development of corneal haze were examined after 24 h. TLR4-/- mice reconstituted with C57BL/6, but not TLR4-/- bone marrow cells donor cells were found to cause infiltration of eGFP + cells to the cornea, including neutrophils, and also increased corneal haze compared w..