<b>Pivotal role of duct epithelia in salivary gland </b><b>GVHD </b>

Abstract

Summary. Although salivary glands are one of the target organs in graft-versus host disease (GVHD), mechanism of disease-related tissue injury has been poorly understood. To investigate it, we employed rat GVHD model including irradiation and donor cell transfer. Immunostaining revealed that submandibular and parotid, but not sublingual glands showed acinar reduction whereas ducts were almost intact. Ductal area of sublingual glands was significantly smaller than those of submandibular and parotid glands. Ductal epithelial cells upregulated expression of class II major histocompatibility complex antigens overtime. This expression preceded donor cell infiltration. Donor cell infiltration was preferentially found in ductal area at the early phase of the disease. While ductal epithelial cells exhibited upregulated mRNA expression of Th1-type chemokines, infiltrating donor cells exhibited their receptors CXCR3 and CCR5. These results suggest ductal epithelial cells have a pivotal role in the progression of GVHD.

Novel Targeting to XCR1+ Dendritic Cells Using Allogeneic T Cells for Polytopical Antibody Responses in the Lymph Nodes

“…For detection of NK cell-recruiting chemokines, qPCR was performed for the spleen and peripheral LNs at 0 ~12 h after DST following standard methods (71). Briefly, 100 mg of frozen cervical LNs or splenic tissues were dissolved in 1 ml of ISOGEN (Nippon Gene, Tokyo, Japan) and RNA extracted following the manufacturer's instructions.…”

“…RNA integrity was confirmed by agarose gel electrophoresis. qPCR was performed using Universal Probes (Roche, Basel, Switzerland) as reported previously (71). Primer sets were designed according to the Universal Probe Library Assay Design Center (https://qpcr.probefinder.com/organism.jsp) (Table S2).…”