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Immunology and Infectious Disease

Articles

2006

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

In Vivo Mature Immunological Synapses Forming Smacs Mediate Clearance Of Virally Infected Astrocytes From The Brain, Carlos Barcia, Clare Thomas, James Curtin, Gwendalyn King, Kolja Wawrowsky, Marianela Candolfi, Weidong Xiong, Chunyan Liu, Kurt Kroeger, Olivier Boyer, Jerzy Kupiec-Weglinski, David Klatzmann, Maria Castro, Pedro Lowenstein Sep 2006

In Vivo Mature Immunological Synapses Forming Smacs Mediate Clearance Of Virally Infected Astrocytes From The Brain, Carlos Barcia, Clare Thomas, James Curtin, Gwendalyn King, Kolja Wawrowsky, Marianela Candolfi, Weidong Xiong, Chunyan Liu, Kurt Kroeger, Olivier Boyer, Jerzy Kupiec-Weglinski, David Klatzmann, Maria Castro, Pedro Lowenstein

Articles

The microanatomy of immune clearance of infected brain cells remains poorly understood. Immunological synapses are essential anatomical structures that channel information exchanges between T cell–antigen-presenting cells (APC) during the priming and effector phases of T cells' function, and during natural killer–target cell interactions. The hallmark of immunological synapses established by T cells is the formation of the supramolecular activation clusters (SMACs), in which adhesion molecules such as leukocyte function-associated antigen 1 segregate to the peripheral domain of the immunological synapse (p-SMAC), which surrounds the T cell receptor–rich or central SMAC (c-SMAC). The inability so far to detect SMAC formation in …


Fms-Like Tyrosine Kinase 3 Ligand Recruits Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells To The Brain, James Curtin, Gwendalyn King, Carlos Barcia, Chunyan Liu, Francois Hubert, Carole Guillonneau, Regis Josien, Ignacio Anegon, Pedro Lowenstein, Maria Castro Mar 2006

Fms-Like Tyrosine Kinase 3 Ligand Recruits Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells To The Brain, James Curtin, Gwendalyn King, Carlos Barcia, Chunyan Liu, Francois Hubert, Carole Guillonneau, Regis Josien, Ignacio Anegon, Pedro Lowenstein, Maria Castro

Articles

The lack of professional afferent APCs in naive brain parenchyma contributes to the systemic immune ignorance to Ags localized exclusively within the brain. Dendritic cells (DCs) appear within the brain as a consequence of inflammation, but no molecular mechanisms accounting for this influx have been described. In this study we demonstrate that Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3L) recruits plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs; >50-fold; p < 0.001) to the brain parenchyma. These pDCs expressed IFN-alpha, the hallmark cytokine produced by pDCs, indicating recruitment and activation in situ of bona fide pDCs within the brain parenchyma. Flt3L did not increase the numbers of conventional DCs, macrophages, or B, T, NK, NKT, or microglial cells within the brain. Our data demonstrate that Flt3L reconstitutes a crucial afferent component of the immune response, namely, professional APCs within the brain parenchyma, and this could counteract the intrinsic systemic immune ignorance to Ags localized exclusively within the brain.