Characterisation of two human dendritic cell-lines that express CD1a, take-up, process and present soluble antigens and induce MLR

Dendritic cells (DC) are bone marrow derived cells present in diverse tissues and organs including the skin, mucosae and blood. DC have a capital role in the afferent pathway of the immune response because of its role in up-take, processing and presenting antigens to immune cells. Human DC are usually identified by the expression of surface CD1a and HLA-DR. Despite the significant recent developments for in vitro generation of DC derived from blood by using cytokines like GM-CSF and IL-4, the studies on DC and specially on human Langerhans cells (LC) have been hampered by the laborious isolation procedure and the small yield of cells obtained by the various methods of isolation used so far. Therefore, a priority has been a search for monoclonal dendritic cell-lines with LC characteristics in order to facilitate the research in this area. The present study reports on the generation of two stable, self-replicant, adherent, dendritic, CD1a⁺, HLA- DR⁺, CD45RO⁺, CD23/FcERII⁺ cell-lines that up-take and process soluble antigens but also inducing MLR and antigen-dependent T-cell response.