Depletion and Reconstitution of Macrophages

Clodronate-containing liposomes were used to eliminate macrophages in terms of published investigations^{46 (link)}. Briefly, mice were injected with one dose of 5 mg/ml clodronate-liposomes (0.2 ml/mouse, Encapsula NanoSciences, Cat#: CLD-8901) intravenously. After 48 hrs, depletion of macrophages was confirmed by MACS. Two days after this depletion treatment, mice were reconstituted by intravenous injection with 2 × 10⁶ mouse-derived differentiated BMDMs which were dissolved in PBS. In other experiments, mice were reconstituted with lentivirus-transduced BMDMs. After 36 h, these reconstituted mice were intraperitoneally injected with PBS (pH7.0) or LPS (20 mg/kg) and monitored closely for up to 96 h.