Figure 1. A vaccination with aAVC-OVA elicits antigen-specific CD4⁺ T cells via in vivo DC maturation.

(a) Kinetics of serum cytokines after immunization of B6 mice at indicated time points with a single i.v. injection of α-GalCer (1 μg/mouse) or α-GalCer-loaded dendritic cells (DC/Gal) (1 × 10⁶ cells/mouse) or aAVC-OVA (5 × 10⁵ cells/mouse). Serum cytokines were measured by ELISA or Bio-Plex. (Mean±SEM, n = 4) (b) Expression of CD86 on CD8a⁺ and CD8a⁻ DC subsets in the spleen 16 h after an administration of aAVC-OVA in WT and CD1d^−/− mice. (n = 3) (c,d) In vivo MHC class II presentation and proliferation of OT-II after immunization with aAVC-OVA. CFSE-labeled OT-II cells were adoptively transferred into naïve WT (upper), DT-treated-CD11c-DTR (middle) or XCR1-DTR (lower) mice. One day later, mice were immunized with CD1d mRNA-transfected NIH3T3 cells loaded with α-GalCer (CD1d⁺NIH/Gal) (c) or aAVC-OVA (c,d) and proliferation of OT-II cells was assessed 3 days later. (solid, unimmunized control; clear: aAVC-OVA) Data are representative of 4 independent experiments.