Lacrimal gland myoepithelial cells are altered in a mouse model of dry eye disease

The purpose of this study was to determine the pathogenic changes that occur in myoepithelial cells (MECs) from lacrimal glands of a mouse model of Sjogren’s syndrome. MECs were cultured from lacrimal glands of C57BL/6J (wild type, WT), and thrombospondin 1 knockout null (TSP1 -/- ) mice. We used microarray to analyzed the differential expression of genes in cultured MECs of TSP1-/- and wild type (WT) mice. Lacrimal gland myoepithelial cells were isolated and cultured from TSP1-/- and WT mice. Then, total RNA was isolated from cultured cells and gene expression was analyzed with Affymetrix GeneChip Mouse Gene 2.0 ST Array (41,345 transcripts) to detect differences in expression between health and dry eye disease.