Sjögren’s syndrome (SjS) is a chronic autoimmune disorder characterized by immune cell infiltration and progressive injury to the salivary and lacrimal glands. As a consequence, patients with SjS develop xerostomia (dry mouth) and keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eyes). SjS is the third most common rheumatic autoimmune disorder, affecting 4 million Americans with over 90% of patients being female. Current diagnostic criteria for SjS frequently utilize histological examinations of minor salivary glands for immune cell foci, serology for autoantibodies, and dry eye evaluation by corneal or conjunctival staining. SjS can be classified as primary or secondary SjS, depending on whether it occurs alone or in association with other systemic rheumatic conditions, respectively. Clinical manifestations typically become apparent when the disease is relatively advanced in SjS patients, which poses a challenge for early diagnosis and treatment of SjS. Therefore, SjS mouse models, because of their close resemblance to the human SjS, have been extremely valuable to identify early disease markers and to investigate underlying biological and immunological dysregulations. However, it is important to bear in mind that no single mouse model has duplicated all aspects of SjS pathogenesis and clinical features, mainly due to the multifactorial etiology of SjS that includes numerous susceptibility genes and environmental factors. As such, various mouse models have been developed in the field to try to recapitulate SjS. In this review, we focus on recent mouse models of primary SjS and describe them under three categories of spontaneous, genetically engineered, and experimentally induced development of SjS-like disease. In addition, we discuss future perspectives of SjS mouse models highlighting pros and cons of utilizing mouse models and demands for improved models.

It has been validated that ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiation induced both squamous and basal cell carcinomas, as a tumor initiator and promoter. Opuntia humifusa is a member of the Cactaceae family which has been demonstrated in our previous study to have a chemopreventive effect in 7, 12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene and 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate induced skin carcinogenesis models. Therefore, this study was designed to determine the protective effects of O. humifusa against photocarcinogenesis. O. humifusa was administrated to mice as a dietary feeding, following exposure to UVB radiation (180 mJ/cm(2)) twice a week of 30 weeks for skin tumor development in hairless mice. Dietary O. humifusa inhibited UVB-induced epidermal hyperplasia, infiltration of leukocytes, level of myeloperoxidase and the levels of proinflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), in UVB exposed skin. Also, O. humifusa significantly inhibited both protein and mRNA expression level of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and cyclin D1 compared to the non-O. humifusa treated group. Collectively, these results suggest that O. humifusa could inhibit photocarcinogenesis in mouse skin and that protective effect is associated with the inhibition of not only UVB-induced inflammatory responses involving COX-2, iNOS and proinflammatory cytokines, but also the down-regulation of UVB-induced cellular proliferation.

-The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of multivitamin on macrophage activity in Raw 264.7 cell and repeated oral dose toxicity in Sprague-Dawely rat of multivitamin. Raw 264.7 cells were treated with 50 and 100 µg/mL multivitamin for 24 h. To measure the activity of macrophages, NO and TNF-α assays were performed in Raw 264.7 cells. Treatment with 50 and 100 µg/mL multivitamin for 24 h significantly increased production of NO and TNF-α compared with control groups, indicating activation of macrophages. The female rats were treated with multivitamin of control group, low group (0.24 g/kg), medium group (1 g/kg) and high group (2 g/kg) intragastrically for 4 weeks, respectively. We examined the body weight, the feed intake, the clinical signs and serum biochemical analysis. We also observed the histopathological changes of liver, ovary, brain, adrenal gland, spleen, kidney, heart and lung in rats. No significant differences in body weights, feed intake, biochemical analysis and histopathological observations between control and multivitamin treatment group were found. In conclusion, multivitamin is physiologically safe and improve macrophage activity.