Cytokine production by human dendritic cells - Is less more?

树突状细胞（DC）是专门的白色血细胞，负责启动和协调针对病原体和癌症的免疫应答。DC充当免疫系统的哨兵，并在全身各处发现，它们不断监测感染或危险信号。一旦武装起来，它们就会运输到淋巴结，在那里它们激活T淋巴细胞和NK细胞，然后负责对感染或肿瘤进行攻击。树突状细胞如何对危险做出反应的复杂机制，以及它们如何指导T细胞和NK细胞诱导适合特定感染的特异性免疫反应，目前还知之甚少。我们目前对DC的认识大多来自小鼠研究，并且认为树突状细胞分泌细胞因子起重要作用。人类树突状细胞很难识别，但我们已经开创了从人体组织中分离和培养它们的方法。因此，我们将研究人类DC亚群细胞因子的产生及其在诱导免疫应答中的作用。DC可以在试管中被指示识别癌症并产生免疫反应，这是一种有希望的癌症新疗法。我们的工作将揭示有关最有效的危险信号，DC类型和诱导针对癌症的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.