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. 2023 Dec 4;25(1):142–154. doi: 10.1038/s41590-023-01690-z

Fig. 1. Intravital imaging reveals transient contacts between MZ B cells and RBCs.

Fig. 1

The behaviors of MZ B cells were observed with intravital two-photon microscopy in Cd19−/− mice reconstituted with Ub-GFP+ B cells. CTV-labeled naive B cells were used to identify follicles. PKH26-labeled RBCs were intravenously injected 3 h before imaging, and 70-kD Texas Red dextran was introduced 30 min before imaging. a, Schematic diagram of the intravital imaging protocol. b, Representative flow cytometry profiles of MZ B cells among GFP+ B cells 8–12 weeks after reconstitution. c, A representative flow cytometry profile of PKH26-labeled RBCs in total splenic RBCs. d, Representative distribution patterns of PKH26-labeled RBCs (red), GFP+ B cells (green), CTV-labeled B cells (blue) and IgD+ B cells (white) in the spleen; scale bar, 100 μm. The section shown is representative of multiple cross-sections from at least three mice. e, Examples of contacts between RBCs and MZ B cells (blue arrowhead) in spleens. The region (120 μm × 120 μm) indicated with white box (left; scale bar, 40 μm) was zoomed in for the time series (right; scale bar, 20 μm). One RBC was tracked interacting with several different MZ B cells. The interaction starts at 9:32 and ends at 18:45. Time is indicated in minutes:seconds. See corresponding Supplementary Videos 2–4. Data are representative of five independent experiments.