Visualizing and Manipulating Psoriasiform Inflammation in Mice

Published mouse strains used in this study are referenced in the online Methods. NaV1.8-Cre mice were bred with Rosa26-DTA and Rosa26-TdT mice in order to generate NaV1.8-DTA mice for functional studies and NaV.1.8-TdT mice for imaging, respectively. TRPV1⁺ nociceptors were deleted using three escalating doses (30 μg/kg, 70 μg/kg, and 100 μg/kg) of resiniferatoxin (RTX) as described^{11 (link)}. To induce psoriasiform ear inflammation, 8–12 week old mice were treated topically with 5% IMQ cream or injected with 500 ng/ear rIL-23. Ear thickness was measured using an engineer’s micrometer (Mitutoyo). Cytokines were quantified from skin protein extracts by ELISA (Biolegend, R&D). For flow cytometric analysis of tissue leukocyte markers and intracellular cytokines, single-cell suspensions from ear skin were prepared by enzymatic digestion^{4 (link)}. Imaging of fixed skin tissue was performed using an Olympus Fluoview BX50WI inverted microscope, while MP-IVM in live anesthetized mice was performed using an upright microscope (Prairie Technologies) with a MaiTai Ti:sapphire laser (Spectra-Physics). All animal studies were approved by the IACUC of Harvard Medical School and complied with NIH guidelines.