Figure 7
LTBR-Ig treatment reduced the loss of epithelial integrity of conjunctiva and cornea. Selected examples of the appearance of mouse eyes 5 minutes after applying a 5 μl drop of FITC-PBS (a). Eyes of anesthetized mice were illuminated with Cobalt-blue filtered light and observed and photographed though a slit-lamp microscope (a). Note that the bright green outline of the eye is pooled excess FITC-PBS and does not indicate epithelial damage. An example of a corneal score of zero for an LTBR-Ig treated mouse (left) and a score of 4 for an untreated mouse (right) is shown, where the red circle in (a) indicates the region defined as the cornea. Mice were treated from age 8 to 16 weeks with LTBR-Ig (circles in b), were left untreated (squares in b), or were treated with MOPC-21 control antibody (triangles in b). The scores for the conjunctiva (left graph) and the cornea (right graph) for one eye of each mouse (contra-lateral to the eye used to measure tear secretion) were plotted and the mean score indicated (b). This experiment was performed twice. FITC, fluorescein isothyocyanate; LTBR-Ig; lymphotoxin-beta receptor-mouse immunoglobulin (Fc) chimeric inhibitor; PBS, phosphate-buffered saline.