Mice and particle injections
Female C56BL/6 mice were obtained from DILAVE (MGAP, Uruguay) and kept
at the Instituto de Higiene animal house. Animals aged 8 – 12 weeks
were inoculated intraperitoneally (i.p.) with 225 µg or wpLL or 150 µg
of pLL, pLL periodate or pLL mock diluted into 200 µL of sterile
endotoxin-free saline, or injected with vehicle only. The doses of wpLL
and pLL were chosen so as to correspond to equal dry masses of the mucin
component, since calcium InsP 6 represents
one-third of the LL dry mass (9). Mice were killed 24 h later and
peritoneal cavity cells retrieved by lavage for their analysis by flow
cytometry. The procedure was approved by the Universidad de la
República’s Animal Experimentation Committee (CHEA; protocol
101-900-000441-16).