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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Immunol. 2011 Feb 1;186(3):1325–1331. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.0902539

Figure 1. Functional plasticity of DCs: subsets.

Figure 1

Human LCs induce potent CTL responses, possibly via IL-15: At least four lines of evidence indicate that human LCs are remarkable at inducing CTL responses ex vivo: 1) LCs loaded with an MHC class I peptide potently induce the proliferation of peptide-specific naïve CD8+ T cells; 2) LCs expand naïve CD8+ T cells with high avidity against peptide/MHC class I complex; 3) Naive CD8+ T cells primed by LCs express high levels of cytotoxic molecules, such as granzymes A, B, and perforin, and display a high cytotoxicity; and 4) LCs are efficient at cross-presentation of antigens. Human CD14+ dermal DCs induce potent humoral responses via IL-12: When DCs form the complex with T cells and B cells at extrafollicular sites, IL-12 derived from activated DCs promotes B cells to differentiate into antibody secreting cells by two different paths: a direct path via DC-B interaction, and an indirect path through induction of IL-21-producing Tfh-like cells. Thus, the most efficient CD8+ T cell vaccines might be those that build on DCs expressing the molecular signatures of LCs, for example IL-15-DCs.