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Dendritic cells: effective sentinels for immunotherapies

Dendritic cells (DCs) are crucial cells in the initiation and regulation of the adaptive immune response. These leukocytes form a link between the innate and adaptive immunity. They are also called antigen-presenting cells (APCs) since they are responsible for capturing, processing and presenting antigens of detected pathogens to lymphocytes.

Their main responsibility is recognizing pathogens and attacking them with the help of Natural Killer (NK) cells. DCs express distinct patterns of cytokines to attract T cells for more effective action against pathogens. This will activate naïve T cells and differentiate them into effector T cells.

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 Dendritic Cells Resist Cell Death to Prime Immune System’s Infection Response

Dendritic cells (DCs)—a cell type closely related to macrophages—are necessary to relay important information about the invading pathogen to T cells, in order to mount a protective immune response. This process of T cell activation can take anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. This led the researchers to ponder how adaptive immunity is established against virulent pathogens if sensing of virulent pathogens leads to cell death.

Articles of Interest

Dendritic Cell Overview

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a pivotal role in the innate detection of pathogens and the subsequent activation of the adaptive immune response. DCs initiate the adaptive response by presenting antigenic peptides on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules to induce T cell activation and differentiation.

Dendritic Cells

T cells are an essential element that regulates the balance in immunity, by killing infected cells, helping antibody formation and suppressing autoimmune responses. However, T cells are incapable of recognizing native antigens. Instead, they recognize processed peptides presented by MHC molecules. Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells that inform the fight against invasive pathogens while enforcing tolerance to self and harmless environmental antigens.

Dendritic Cells and Their Role in Immunotherapy

Dendritic cells are also emerging as critical regulators of the immune response within tumors. Understanding how to augment the function of these intratumoral dendritic cells could offer new approaches to enhance immunotherapy, in addition to improving the cytotoxic and targeted therapies that are partially dependent upon a robust immune response for their efficacy.

Review of Dendritic Cells, Their Role in Clinical Immunology, and Distribution in Various Animal Species

Dendritic cells (DCs) are cells derived from the hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) of the bone marrow and form a widely distributed cellular system throughout the body. They are the most efficient, potent, and professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) of the immune system, inducing and dispersing a primary immune response by the activation of naïve T-cells, and playing an important role in the induction and maintenance of immune tolerance under homeostatic conditions.

The More, the Merrier: DC3s Join the Human Dendritic Cell Family

Recent studies have reported additional subpopulations of human dendritic cells (DCs), but whether they are distinct subsets has been unclear. In this issue of Immunity, Cytlak et al. and Bourdely et al. show that DC3s possess a specific precursor and represent a separate DC lineage.

The Role of Dendritic Cells During Infections Caused by Highly Prevalent Viruses

Dendritic cells (DCs) are a type of innate immune cells with major relevance in the establishment of an adaptive response, as they are responsible for the activation of lymphocytes. Since their discovery, several reports of their role during infectious diseases have been performed, highlighting their functions and their mechanisms of action.

Under the Microscope: Dendritic Cells

Dendritic cells (DCs) are a diverse group of specialized antigen-presenting cells (APCs) derived from bone marrow precursors and form a widely distributed cellular system throughout the body. DCs have a key role in the initiation and regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses

Resources

BiteSized Immunology

Dendritic cells (DCs), named for their probing, ‘tree-like’ or dendritic shapes, are responsible for the initiation of adaptive immune responses and hence function as the ‘sentinels’ of the immune system. Paul Langerhans first described DCs in human skin in 1868 but thought they were cutaneous nerve cells.

The Human Protein Atlas

Dendritic cells (DCs) are antigen-presenting cells (APC) that act as messengers between the innate and the adaptive immune systems. They are present in tissues that are in contact with the external environment, but also in an immature state in the blood, and upon activation they migrate to the lymph nodes to interact with T-cells and B-cells.