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Cutting Edge: Membrane Nanotubes In Vivo: A Feature of MHC Class II⁺ Cells in the Mouse Cornea¹

Holly R. Chinnery^*, Eric Pearlman and Paul G. McMenamin^2,*

^* School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley (Perth), Western Australia, Australia and Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106

Membrane nanotubes are a recently discovered form of cellular protrusion between two or more cells whose functions include cell communication, environmental sampling, and protein transfer. Although clearly demonstrated in vitro, evidence of the existence of membrane nanotubes in mammalian tissues in vivo has until now been lacking. Confocal microscopy of whole-mount corneas from wild-type, enhanced GFP chimeric mice, and Cx3cr1^gfp transgenic mice revealed long (>300 µm) and fine (<0.8 µm diameter) membrane nanotube-like structures on bone marrow-derived MHC class II⁺ cells in the corneal stroma, some of which formed distinct intercellular bridges between these putative dendritic cells. The frequency of these nanotubes was significantly increased in corneas subjected to trauma and LPS, which suggests that nanotubes have an important role in vivo in cell-cell communication between widely spaced dendritic cells during inflammation. Identification of these novel cellular processes in the mammalian cornea provides the first evidence of membrane nanotubes in vivo.

The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

¹ This research was funded by an Ada Bartholemew Research Grant, National Institutes of Health Grants RO1EY14362 and P30EY11373, the Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation, and the Ohio Lions Eye Research Foundation.

² Address correspondence and reprint requests to Prof. Paul G. McMenamin, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley (Perth), 6009 Western Australia, Australia. E-mail address: mcmenamin{at}anhb.uwa.edu.au

³ Abbreviations used in this paper: DC, dendritic cell; BM, bone marrow; eGFP, enhanced GFP.