engleski

Possible role of dendritic cells in syngenic and allogenic murine pregnancy

PROBLEM: Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells, able to initiate innate and adaptive immune responses against invading pathogens. Under steady state conditions they continuously sample antigens, leading to tolerance, whereas inflammatory conditions activate DCs, inducing immune activation. Immature DCs are well positioned throughout the body to sense and capture invading pathogens for efficient antigen presentation to naive T cells. The role of DCs in pregnancy is still unclear, but they are thought to be involved in the regulatory functions. This study analyzed phenotypic and functional characteristics of DCs in murine pregnancy. METHODS: Experiments were performed on freshly isolated and/or cultured uterine cells of 8-12 weeks old C57BL/6 female mice (mated with syngenic (C57BL/6) or allogenic (BALB/c) males), sacrificed on the 4, 7 and 14 day of gestation (gd). Lineage, maturity and phenotype of DCs were detected by flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry. CD11c+ DCs were purified by magnetic cell sorting microbeads and used in proliferation assay. Frequency of CD11c+ cells and intracellular staining of IFN-g were investigated, besides in uteri, in the spleen and lymph nodes of pregnant animals. RESULTS: In both pregnancy models, murine uteri contain an increased number of CD11c+ DCs (4 gd) that express a mature phenotype (up-regulation of surface expression of CD86 and MHC class II (I-A/I-E) molecules), compared to the virgin ones. Uterine CD11c+ cells are not able to induce proliferation of syngenic or allogenic CD4+ splenocytes, but they can stimulate IFN-g production in splenic NK cells after 96 hour-cultivation. CONCLUSIONS: Murine DCs are of myeloid origin (CD11c+CD8-) and they express high levels of MHC class II and co-stimulatory molecules, suggesting their possible role in modification of the immune response during the post implantation events. These cells could also participate in the induction of some aspects of tolerance to the conceptus through the interaction with uterine NK cells.

Dendritic cells; Murine DCs; Pregnancy

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