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Use of topical cyclosporin A in a primary Sjögren's syndrome mouse model
K Tsubota1, I Saito, N Ishimaru
1Department of Ophthalmology, and the Oral Health Science Center, Tokyo Dental College, Chiba, Japan.
Purpose:
A new animal model, the NFS/sld mutant mouse, was used for primary Sjögren's syndrome to investigate the efficacy of topical and systemic cyclosporin A (CyA) in preventing inflammation of the exocrine glands.
Methods:
Cyclosporin A was applied topically (0.01% and 0.1%, three times a day) or administered orally (10 mg/kg and 100 mg/kg, once a day) to mice from 6 to 16 weeks of age, after which the mice were killed.
Results:
Topical CyA reduced lacrimal gland and submandibular gland inflammation without causing pathologic changes in other organs. Flow cytometry showed that CD44 expression of CD4 T cells from the submandibular lymph nodes was downregulated, whereas that of Mel14+ was upregulated. Using a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay, we determined that topical CyA significantly decreased the expression of mRNA of IL-2 and T-cell receptor-constant beta-chain.
Conclusions:
Topical CyA may be clinically useful in reducing the lymphocyte infiltration of lacrimal glands associated with Sjögren's syndrome.