Expression and function of B7 on human epidermal Langerhans cells

The B7 molecule is expressed by APC that can costimulate T cells by binding the T cell surface receptors CD28 and CTLA-4. The human epidermal Langerhans cell (LC) is one of the most potent APC, yet B7 expression by this cell type has not previously been assessed. We used a CTLA4-Ig fusion protein that binds B7 with high avidity to probe cell surface expression of B7 by cultured and noncultured LC. LC cultured for 1 or more days were specifically stained with biotinylated CTLA4-Ig and fluorescent streptavidin. In contrast, binding of CTLA4-Ig to freshly isolated LC was not detected. The cell surface distributions of B7 and of HLA-DR on cultured LC differed, as CTLA4-Ig binding was localized to discrete foci, whereas anti-DR mAb uniformly stained the LC plasma membrane. Analyses of epidermal cell (EC) mRNA indicated that the B7 gene is expressed by these cells. Thus, B7 gene probes specifically hybridized to polymerase chain reaction-amplified B7 mRNA isolated from cultured and noncultured EC. As LC are the only normal epidermal cell type that induces proliferation of allogeneic T cells, the role of B7 in this LC function was studied by coculturing highly purified resting CD4+ T cells and allogeneic EC in the presence of CTLA4-Ig, anti-CD54 (RR/1, anti-intercellular adhesion molecule-1) mAb, or both. CTLA4-Ig and RR/1 each inhibited CD4+ T cell responses to freshly isolated allogeneic EC, and cooperative inhibition of more than 90% was observed in cultures treated with both CTLA4-Ig and RR/1 at 5 micrograms/ml. CTLA4-Ig inhibited stimulation by either fresh EC or cultured EC, suggesting that the increased potency of cultured LC vs noncultured LC may reflect the time needed for noncultured LC to express cell surface B7 in vitro. These studies indicate that B7 is expressed on the cell surface of cultured LC, and that LC B7 costimulates the proliferation of resting allogeneic CD4+ T cells.