NEW INFORMATION ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN Th1/Th17 AND Th2/Th9 CELLS IN THEIR MIGRATION INTO EYE TISSUES Data collected in this study (initiated and detailed in previous Annual Reports, mostly in FY 2015) were summarized in a manuscript submitted to Experimental Eye Research. Reviewers comments requested additional information on two issues: (i) The effect of the conjunctival inflammation in recipients of Th2/Th9 cells on goblet cells in this tissue. These cells were identified by staining with PAS. Unlike the typical increase in goblet cell number (hyperplasia) in classical allergic conjunctivitis, the number of goblet cells did not change in conjunctivae of mice with allergy-like reaction induced by Th2 cells. (ii) Measuring the proportion of eosinophils among the inflammatory cells in the recipient conjunctivae revealed the presence of eosinophils throughout the affected tissue, reaching up to 50% in areas in which eosinophils were aggregated. NEW INFORMATION CONCERNING THE IMMUNOMODULATING AGENT TMP778 Data collected in this study, detailed in previous Annual Reports, were summarized and submitted in a manuscript to the European Journal of Immunology. To address reviewers comments, we analyzed the eye infiltrating cells in mice treated with TMP778 or the vehicle control. The method we employed was intracellular flow cytometry and the collected data revealed that (i) the proportions of positive cells among total CD4 cells was approximately twice larger than the proportions found among CD4 cells in the spleen of the tested mice; (ii) similar to observations in the spleen, the proportion of infiltrating cells expressing interferon-gamma (IFN-g) was larger than of cells expressing interleukin (IL)-17 (This finding is of interest, since TMP778 is a selective inhibitor of RORgt, the transcription factor for IL-17.
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