LTα1β2 induces FRC and LEC expansion and CXCL13 production in nasal stromal cells
In addition to B cells, we found that LTβR was also expressed on vimentin+ stromal cells in eLTs in NPs by immunofluorescence study (Fig E5, A) and the mRNA expression levels of LTβR was enhanced in purified stromal cells from NPs with eLTs compared to those from NPs without eLTs and control tissues (Fig E5, B). Flow cytometric analysis showed that LTβR expression was upregulated in four subsets of stromal cells in NPs with eLTs (Fig E5, C and D).
We next found that LTα1β2 induced CXCL13 mRNA production in nasal stromal cells in a dose-dependent manner (Fig 5, A). LTα1β2 also induced CXCL13 protein production in nasal stromal cells (Fig 5, B). FRCs and LECs were found to be the major stromal cell types producing CXCL13 under LTα1β2 stimulation (Fig 5, C). Different from the effect of IL-17A, LTα1β2induced the remodeling of nasal stromal cells towards not only FRCs but also LECs (Fig 5, D).