Figure 3.

Epithelial neutrophils are present even in clinically uninflamed eyes despite the severity of clinically identifiable conjunctival inflammation correlating with the inflammatory infiltrate. (A) Representative flow plots for CD45^INTCD14⁻ live granulocytes for a healthy individual, a patient with a clinically uninflamed eye, one with mild, and one with moderate clinical inflammation. Healthy and clinically uninflamed individuals were also compared ([B] OcMMP n = 20, HC n = 21). The number and percentages of neutrophils were correlated with the degree of conjunctival inflammation and healthy participants (C). Two-group comparison with the Mann-Whitney U test and ordinal group comparisons were undertaken by the Jonckheere-Terpstra test (NS, not significant; *P = 0.01–0.05; **P = 0.001–0.01; ***P < 0.001).