Studying Chemokine Control of Neutrophil Migration In Vivo in a Murine Model of Inflammatory Arthritis.

Chemokines regulate the migration of cells in vivo and dysregulated expression of chemokines and their receptors are implicated in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Inflammatory arthritides, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), are characterized by the recruitment of inflammatory cells into joints. The K/BxN serum transfer mouse model of inflammatory arthritis shares many similar features with RA. In this autoantibody-induced model of arthritis, neutrophils are the critical immune cells necessary for the development of joint inflammation and damage. In this review, we describe the use of several methods to study the role of chemoattractant receptors, including chemokine receptors, on the recruitment of neutrophils into the joint in the K/BxN model of inflammatory arthritis. This includes both traditional methods, such as flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, and enzyme assays, as well as multiphoton in vivo microscopy that we have adapted to study the role of immune cell trafficking in and around the joint in live mice.