Possible Involvement of Liver Resident Macrophages (Kupffer Cells) in the Pathogenesis of Both Intrahepatic and Extrahepatic Inflammation

Figure 4

Deletion of Kupffer cells partly regulated collagen-induced arthritis. Collagen-induced arthritis was induced in control or KC deleted DBA/2 mice as scheduled in (a). One hundred ul of clodronate liposome (LEC) was administered every 7 days (small arrows). Collagen was intradermally injected at days 0 and 21 as middle arrows. (b) Severity scores of arthritic limbs from treated mice. The number of arthritic limbs was quantitated and assigned a severity score as described in Material and Methods. (c) Comparison of limbs thickness as the feature of arthritis. (d) Histological analysis of the limb joints from the treated mice. (e) Splenocytes response activity assay. Splenocytes from the sacrificed mice were stimulated in vitro with collagen (75 ug/ml) for 72 h and then MTT assay was performed. .

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)