Bone Marrow-Derived Dendritic Cell Cultures from RAG-/- Mice Include IFN-γ-Producing NK Cells

Kaveh Abdi1, L Michael Thomas2, Karen Laky3

  • 1Laboratory of Immunogenetics, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20852; kabdi@niaid.nih.gov.

Immunohorizons
|July 16, 2020
PubMed

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in the initiation of an immune response and are known as "professional" APCs because of their ability to activate naive T cells. A widely used method to generate DCs in vitro is to culture bone marrow (BM) cells or blood monocytes in the presence of GM-CSF and IL-4. In this study, we show that a small population of NK cells residing in the BM of RAG-/-, but not RAG-/- γc chain-/- mice, remain in the DC culture and is the source of IFN-γ produced after stimulation with LPS. These cells, which may represent early promoters of LPS-induced responses, have to be taken into account when interpreting experiments using BM-derived DCs.

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