The regulation of T cell responses by a subpopulation of CD8 DEC205 murine dendritic cells

Abstract

Dendritic cells (DC) are migratory bone-marrow-derived cells of sparse but broad tissue distribution1,2. They are not homogeneous and even within a particular lymphoid organ distinct subpopulations can be separated3–5. If procedures are used which extract all DC, both CD8α+ and CD8α− DC can be isolated from mouse spleen5. Under these conditions the DC isolated from thymus are predominantly CD8+, whereas those isolated from lymph nodes (LN) are predominantly CD8−. This heterogeneity may be of functional importance, since there is evidence that the CD8+ DC of the thymus are of different developmental origin from the classical CD8− DC typically found in LW6,7. Since conventional isolation proce..