Fig. 2

Effect of a local Th1- and Th2-skewed immune response on the corneal epithelium and nerves of transgenic CD4⁺ T cell receptor mice. OT-II mice were immunized with ovalbumin (OVA) in combination with complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA) or alum and later given OVA or saline (PBS) eye drops, as detailed in the previous figure. A Representative micrographs of corneal whole mounts stained with E-cadherin (red) and tubulin β3 (green) from immunized OT-II mice. B Cumulative data and C representative micrographs of corneal dextran-fluorescein uptake in immunized OT-II mice. The dotted reference line corresponds to wild-type C57/BL6 mice with dry eye surgically induced on the same day as the ocular challenge (positive control for corneal epitheliopathy). D Corneal mechanical sensitivity thresholds of immunized mice over the 31-day experiment. The dotted reference line corresponds to the average baseline measurements of all the mice in the experiment. E Schematic of the levels at which corneal nerve morphology was analyzed. F Density of vertical intraepithelial nerve terminals in mid-epithelial corneal sections (representative example). G Representative micrographs of mid-peripheral subbasal sections (tubulin β3 staining) and H pooled data (representative experiment) of corneal neural complexity quantification (sum of intersections, Sholl analysis). All experiments were performed twice or more with 6 mice/group/experiment. For all experiments, mean ± standard error of measurement is shown. Two-way ANOVA (immunization and ocular challenge) with Sidak’s post hoc test was used to compare means. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ns not significant