Document Type

Article

Rights

Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Publication Details

Journal of Immunology, 2006 Mar 15;176(6):3566-77.

Abstract

The lack of professional afferent APCs in naive brain parenchyma contributes to the systemic immune ignorance to Ags localized exclusively within the brain. Dendritic cells (DCs) appear within the brain as a consequence of inflammation, but no molecular mechanisms accounting for this influx have been described. In this study we demonstrate that Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3L) recruits plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs; >50-fold; p < 0.001) to the brain parenchyma. These pDCs expressed IFN-alpha, the hallmark cytokine produced by pDCs, indicating recruitment and activation in situ of bona fide pDCs within the brain parenchyma. Flt3L did not increase the numbers of conventional DCs, macrophages, or B, T, NK, NKT, or microglial cells within the brain. Our data demonstrate that Flt3L reconstitutes a crucial afferent component of the immune response, namely, professional APCs within the brain parenchyma, and this could counteract the intrinsic systemic immune ignorance to Ags localized exclusively within the brain.

DOI

10.4049/jimmunol.176.6.3566

Funder

NIH, Bram and Elaine Goldsmith Chair in Gene Therapeutics, The Linda Tallen and David Paul Kane Annual Fellowship, Board of Governors at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.


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