Differentiation of monoblastic cell line UG3 into leukemic dendritic cells

Dendritic cells (DCs) are known to be generated from leukemic clone from patients with acute and chronic leukemia when cultured in the presence of combination of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin-4. However, there have been few reports that showed DCs could be effectively differentiated from human leukemia cell lines. In this study, we have shown that a human monoblastic cell line, UG3, was inducible to differentiate into DCs in the presence of GM-CSF and TNF-alpha along monocyte-macrophage lineage. These DCs, consistently displayed dendritic morphology, phenotypes and allogeneic T-cell stimulating capacity. UG3 cells thus may represent a suitable model to further elucidate characteristics of DC differentiation.