Abstract
Purpose: :
To use the confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope (cSLO) to track in vivo macrophage recruitment following injury in the dystrophic RCS rat retina.
Methods: :
Dystrophic RCS rats were superolaterally sham injected in the retina at P18 causing injury to the inner and outer retina (n=4) (fig. A-I). High-magnification autofluorescence (AF) images of the retinas were statistically analysed to quantify and track the geographic spread of phagocytosing macrophages across the rodent retina. Three weeks after injury the eyes were excised and retinas flatmounted to correlate in vivo data with immunohistochemical data using ED1 expression to locate macrophages (fig. J-M).
Results: :
Quantitative analysis of changes in AF distribution in in vivo images made over weeks after injury demonstrated that from an initial presence of recruited macrophages in the immediate vicinity of injection sites, they rapidly spread, migrating along the major retinal vessels, phagocytosing outer segment debris during the process (fig G-I). The in vivo imaging method used to track macrophage postinjury immune/inflammatory reaction is corroborated using immunohistochemical and structural histology (fig J-M).
Keywords: phagocytosis and killing • imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound) • immunomodulation/immunoregulation