3.4 Roles of RAGE in the feeding process of hard ticks
To evaluate the impact of RAGE-ligands axis on the tick bite induced inflammation, ticks were allowed to feed on wt orRAGE-/- mice. We observed that infiltration of inflammatory cells gradually increased in the subsequent infestations in wt mice but it was not evident in RAGE-/- mice, indicating RAGE plays a vital role in the development of pathological changes induced during tick bite (Figure 1A). Counting of the inflammatory cells per focus by two blind investigators revealed that the number of inflammatory cells significantly (p<0.001) increased at the site of attachment of ticks in the different feeding phases in wt mice but not in RAGE -/- mice. However, in the 3rd infestations, cellular infiltration reached to the highest level (350.3±16.8 cells/focus) in wt mice, whereas in theRAGE-/- mice it was almost comparable to the cellular infiltration detected in fresh skin (Figure 1B).