Tracking Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Response to Physical Contact with Infected Cells

Dendritic cells (DCs) are key regulators of both innate and adaptive immunity via varied functions, including cytokine production and antigen presentation. Plasmacytoid DC (pDC) is a DC subset specialized in the production of type I and III interferons (IFNs). They are thus pivotal players of the host antiviral response during the acute phase of infection by genetically distant viruses. The pDC response is primarily triggered by the endolysosomal sensors Toll-like receptors, which recognize nucleic acids from pathogens. In some pathologic contexts, pDC response can also be triggered by host nucleic acids, hereby contributing to the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, such as, e.g., systemic lupus erythematosus. Importantly, recent in vitro studies from our laboratory and others uncovered that pDCs sense viral infections when a physical contact is established with infected cells. This specialized synapse-like feature enables a robust type I and III IFN secretion at the infected site. Therefore, this concentrated and confined response likely limits the correlated deleterious impacts of excessive cytokine production to the host, notably due to tissue damages. Here we provide a pipeline of methods for ex vivo studies of pDC antiviral functions, designed to address how pDC activation is regulated by cell-cell contact with virally infected cells and the current approaches enabling to decipher the underlying molecular events leading to an efficient antiviral response.