In vitro characterization of rat bone marrow-derived dendritic cells and their precursors

Although the rat is commonly used for basic immunology and transplantation research, phenotypic and functional characterization of rat dendritic cells (DCs) lags behind similar studies in the human and mouse. Therefore, these features were examined using DCs propagated from cultures of rat bone marrow maintained in a medium supplemented with granulocyte-monocyte colony-stimulating factor. Analysis of cytospin preparations of cultured cells showd that DCs arise from OX7+ myelomonocytic precursors. Typical mature rat DCs were morphologically similar to their mouse and human counterparts and expressed major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II (common part determinant of Ia), OX62 (integrin molecule), OX7 (CD90), ICAM-1 (CD54), and CTLA4 counterreceptor, but were negative for OX8 (CD8), OX19 (CD5), W3/25 (CD4), and ED2, a rat macrophage marker. Functional analysis of OX62+ sorted DCs showed that they could effectively present the soluble antigen ovalbumin to naive T cells in vitro. A combination of anti-MHC class II monoclonal antibody and CTLA4-immunoglobulin inhibited allostimulatory ability more effectively than either reagent alone. Implications for studying the role of DCs in immune responses in the rat are discussed.