Identification of Lyve‐1 positive macrophages as resident cells in meninges of rats

Abstract Meningeal immunity along with its associated lymphatic vasculatures is widely discussed recently. Lymphatic vessels in meninges drain interstitial fluid into the deep‐cervical lymph nodes. The vessels are composed of cells that express the cardinal marker for lymphatic endothelium—the lymphatic vessel hyaluronan receptor‐1 (Lyve‐1). However, studies also show the presence of nonendothelial Lyve‐1 expressing cells in certain tissues. Therefore, we were curious if nonendothelial Lyve‐1+ cells are also present in dura mater of meninges. We show that Lyve‐1+ endothelial cells are distributed adjacent to the blood vessels in the brain dura mater of rats. We did not observe any lymphatic vessels in spinal dura mater. Interestingly, we also observed isolated population of nonlymphatic Lyve‐1+ cells in both brain and spinal dura mater. Morphologically, the Lyve‐1+ cells were extensively pleomorphic, sometimes elongated or round. Surprisingly, the thoracolumbal meningeal Lyve‐1+ cells were predominantly round in morphology. Using endothelial specific marker VEGFR3 and macrophage markers CD68 and CD169, we observed that the isolated Lyve‐1+ cells lacked endothelial cell signature, but were either CD68+ or CD169+ macrophages. Moreover, we observed that the Lyve‐1+ cells colocalized with collagen fibers in the meninges, and some of Lyve‐1+ cells had intracellular collagen. The study for the first time demonstrates the presence of Lyve‐1 positive macrophages in the lymphatic and nonlymphatic regions in the meninges of rats.