In Vivo and In Vitro Assay to Address Dendritic Cell Antigen Cross-Presenting Capacity

Antigen cross-presentation by dendritic cells is an important pathway to prime CD8⁺ T cells in infections, cancer, and other immune-mediated pathologies. Particularly in cancer, cross-presentation of tumor-associated antigens is crucial for an effective antitumor CTL response. The mostly accepted cross-presentation assay is to use chicken ovalbumin (OVA) as a model antigen and then utilize OVA-specific TCR transgenic CD8⁺ T (OT-I) cells to measure the cross-presenting capacity. Here we describe in vivo and in vitro assays to measure the function of antigen cross-presentation using cell-associated OVA.