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. 2017 Oct 30;8:1398. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01398

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Copyright © 2017 Bittner-Eddy, Fischer, Tu, Allman and Costalonga.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Dissection of oral mucosa. (A) Occlusal view of the maxilla of a C57BL/6J mouse showing the three upper molars (M1, M2, M3) and hard palate prior to removal of the oral mucosa. White arrows indicate incision lines made in the hard palate down to the maxillary (MX) bone. Black arrows indicate the two entrances of the patent nasopalatine canal located just posterior to the two incisors. (B) Dissection cuts 1, 2, 3, and 8 are indicated by dotted black lines. Marginal gingiva and part of the posterior hard palate have been removed. The anterior hard palate is left in situ and is visible. Segmented black lines are the dissection cuts to harvest the anterior hard palate that includes the nasal-associated lymphoid tissue (NALT). (C) Anterior hard palate remnant peeled back to reveal the underlying nasal passages (black arrows) and intact left and right NALT which are marked by asterisks (*). (D) Micro Computed Tomography (MicroCT) 3D reconstruction showing the medial side of the left hemimaxilla with the three molars. Black arrows show the incision lines #2 and #8. Dotted line shows the boundary of the NALT area. Segmented line “a” and “b” show the cutting planes displayed in panel [(F) a,b]. (E) Dissected oral mucosa including posterior hard palate, mandibular (MND) and MX marginal gingiva, and bilateral mucosa of the cheeks. (F) MicroCT section on a frontal plane crossing the first molar in the two parallel planes (a,b) shown in panel (D). The segmented white arrow indicates the MX alveolar bony shelf where cut #2 lands. NALT location is indicated by the hashed box.