In vitro Chicken Bone Marrow-Derived Dendritic Cells Comprise Subsets at Different States of Maturation

Research in chickens has been fundamental for the discovery of basic aspects of the immune system and has led to an interest in the in-depth characterization of avian immune cell types including dendritic cells (DCs). The in vitro generation and expansion of chicken bone marrow-derived DCs (chBMDCs) in the presence of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) has provided a way to study chicken DCs, which are only present at limited cell numbers in vivo. This method has been employed to study the interactions between chicken DCs and pathogens or vaccines. However, a detailed characterization of the chBMDC culture is still lacking. In the present study, we performed an elaborate phenotypical and functional analysis of the chBMDC culture and addressed its heterogeneity. After 8 days of culture, chBMDCs comprised major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II)low and MHC-IIhigh subsets with different morphologies. Compared with MHC-IIlow chBMDCs, the MHC-IIhigh subset showed a more mature phenotype, with higher expressions of CD1.1, CD40, CD80, CCR7, and CD83, and a relatively low opsonophagocytic capacity. Nevertheless, MHC-IIhigh chBMDCs did not show an increased capacity to induce T-cell proliferation. Therefore, MHC-IIhigh chBMDCs were found to be semi-mature. Interestingly, the presence of the semi-mature MHC-IIhigh chBMDC subset reduced when cells were cultured in the presence of IL-4. Finally, prolonged cell culture after fluorescence-activated cell sor...
Source: Frontiers in Immunology - Category: Allergy & Immunology Source Type: research