Introduction
We recently demonstrated that the proinflammatory and immuno-regulatory cytokine IL-18 is strongly upregulated in salivary glands (SG) of Sjogren's syndrome (SS) patients. IL-18 gain or loss of function experiments in animal models of human diseases have provided evidence of the pathogenic role of this cytokine in chronic inflammation. However, in SS the pathogenic relevance of IL-18 in the development of murine autoimmune sialoadenitis has not as yet been evaluated. Here we describe in vitro experiments in which murine SG epithelial cells were tested for transfection efficiency with IL-18 and IL-18BPcAdV gene transfer. In addition, in preparation for in vivo SG modulation of IL-18 function by AdV-mediated gene transfer, we optimised retrograde SG cannulation in mice.