Dendritic cells (DCs) form a critical interface between innate and adaptive immunity. DCs continuously sample their environment for antigens by means of endocytosis.

Referred to as an antigen-presenting cell (APC), DCs capture, process, and present these antigens to naïve T-helper cells to initiate an immune response.

There is great heterogeneity in DC phenotypes due to their stage of differentiation or according to their response and interaction with cytokines and/or growth factors in their microenvironment. This can make isolating a specific subset of DCs challenging.

Additionally, each subset is rare in number, compounding the difficulty in isolating these cells. Culturing of CD14+ monocytes in the presence of specific growth factors and cytokines can induce differentiation into immature DCs (iDC), known as monocyte-derived immature dendritic cells (MoDCs).

Cultured immature dendritic cells remove the phenotype heterogeneity issue as well as the rarity of these cells.

Dendritic Cells

Human peripheral blood monocyte-derived immature dendritic cells are derived from negatively selected monocytes. Non-monocytes are labeled and depleted from the peripheral blood mononuclear cell population using immunomagnetic particles leaving purified, untouched monocytes.

Untouched monocytes are cultured for 6-8 days in a culture medium containing GM-CSF and IL-4. After culture, cells are checked for the expression of CD11c, HLA-DR, and CD83 and the lack of CD14 expression by flow cytometry.

All donors are tested for HIV, Hepatitis B and C, WNV, CMV, and other blood-borne pathogens.

Biospecimens are obtained from properly consented donors. We conform to HIPAA standards to protect the privacy of the donor’s personal health information.

Human Material Precaution 
It is best to use caution when handling any human cells. We recommend all human cells should be handled as if potentially infectious following biosafety level 2 procedures.

Even with infectious virus assays or viral antigen assays, a negative test result may leave open the possible existence of latent viruses.