Clin Exp Immunol 2002 May;128(2):379-387
Pashenkov M, Soderstrom M, Link YM.
Division of Neurology, Neuroimmunology Unit, and.
Myeloid (CD11c+) dendritic cells (DC) are present in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), as well as in the meninges and choroid plexus
Functional studies of these DC are hindered or impossible
To obviate this problem, we investigated the effects of CSF supernatants from patients with non-inflammatory neurological diseases (NIND), multiple sclerosis (MS), bacterial meningitis (BM) and Lyme meningoencephalitis (LM) on immature monocyte-derived DC (moDC) from healthy donors
CSF supernatants caused maturation of moDC (MS > LM > NIND > BM), as reflected by a decrease in CD1a, and an increase in HLA-DR, CD80 and CD86 expression
The maturation effect of MS CSF and LM CSF could be blocked by anti-TNF-alpha MoAb or recombinant human IL-10
moDC cultured with BM CSF either remained immature or turned into CD14+ macrophage-like cells and were relatively inefficient at inducing T cell responses in vitro
In contrast, moDC cultured with LM CSF induced strong Th1 responses
Both BM CSF and LM CSF contained IFN-gamma, a cytokine that augments IL-12 production by moDC and hence should confer an ability to induce a Th1 response
However, BM CSF also contained high levels of IL-10, which could antagonize the effects of IFN-gamma on moDC
moDC cultured with MS CSF induced a higher production of IFN-gamma from T cells compared to moDC cultured with NIND CSF or BM CSF
In summary, soluble factors present in the CSF may influence the phenotype and functions of meningeal, choroid plexus and CSF DC which, in turn, may have an impact on the character of intrathecal T cell responses.