Innate Adaptive Immunity - Dendritic Cells: APCs

8 important questions on Innate Adaptive Immunity - Dendritic Cells: APCs

Why are dendritic cells so important?

Dendritic cell are the most important APCs as they are the most efficient at activating naive T cells, and are also sentinel cells that can trigger innate responses alongside adaptive immune responses.

Where do dendritic cells originate from?

  1. Myeloid lineage: they are classic dendritic cells from monocytes (cDCs)
  2. Lymphoid lineage: they are plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs)

- They specialize in responding to viruses by producing large quantities of type I interferons (anti-viral)

What are the two types of cDCs?

1. cDC1: Produce IL-12 for Th1 differentiation for certain bacteria, viruses, tumours
2. cDC2: Produce IL-6 for Th2 differentiation and IL-23 for Th17 differentiation
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What can immature DCs do?

They can distribute throughout the body and specialize in capturing and processing antigens (non-dangerous)

They can promote immunological tolerance via overreactive T cell apoptosis and anergy

How do immature DCs mature?

If immature DCs acquire antigens through PAMPs/DAMPs, they will mature by upregulating expression of molecules required to activate T cells.

Where do DCs usually travel to?

DCs are usually surveying tissues throughout the body. When they find an antigen in a dangerous context they travel to lymphoid tissues (specialized antigen presenting areas) to present antigens to naive T cells (E.g. Lymph nodes)

When do dendritic cells mature?

They mature on their way to the secondary lymphoid tissues during trafficking for antigen presentation, due to upregulation of molecules required to activate naive T cells.

What are molecules required to activate naive T cells / mature DCs?

Cytokines, inflammatory mediators, bacterial products, DAMPs

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