Cytokine production by human dendritic cells - Is less more?

树突状细胞(DC)是一种专职的白细胞，负责启动和协调针对病原体和癌症的免疫反应。DC充当免疫系统的哨兵，遍布全身，持续监测感染或危险信号。一旦武装起来，它们就会进入淋巴结，在那里激活T淋巴细胞和NK细胞，然后负责对感染或肿瘤发动攻击。树突状细胞如何应对危险，以及它们如何引导T和NK细胞诱导适合特定感染的特定免疫反应的复杂机制尚不清楚。我们目前对DC的大部分知识都是从小鼠研究中获得的，人们认为树突状细胞分泌细胞因子起着重要作用。人类树突状细胞一直很难识别，但我们已经开创了从人类组织中分离和鉴定它们的方法。因此，我们将研究人类DC亚群产生的细胞因子及其在诱导免疫反应中所起的作用。DC可以在试管中被指示识别癌症并产生免疫反应，这是一种很有前途的癌症新疗法。我们的工作将揭示关于最有效的危险信号、DC的类型以及诱导抗癌免疫反应的最重要细胞因子的基本信息，因此将有助于癌症疫苗的开发。

Dendritic cells (DC) are specialist white blood cells responsible for initiating and coordinating immune responses against pathogens and cancer. DC act as sentinels of the immune system and are found throughout the body where they are in constant surveillance for infections or danger signals. Once armed they traffic to the lymph nodes, where they activate T lymphocytes and NK cells, which are then responsible for mounting an attack against the infection or tumour. The complex mechanisms of how dendritic cells respond to danger, and how they direct T and NK cells to induce specific immune responses appropriate for a particular infection are poorly understood. Most of our current knowledge of DC has been obtained from mouse studies, and it is believed that secretion of cytokines by dendritic cells play an important role. Human dendritic cells have been difficult to identify, however we have pioneered methods to isolate and characterise them from human tissue. We will therefore investigate the production of cytokines from human DC subsets and the role they play in the induction of immune responses. DC can be instructed in the test tube to recognise a cancer and mount an immune response, and this is a promising new therapy for cancer. Our work will uncover fundamental information about the most potent danger signal, the type of DC and the most important cytokines for inducing immune responses against cancers, and will therefore assist in the development of cancer vaccines.