Dendritic cells (DC) are professional antigen presenting cells, uniquely able to induce naïve T cell activation and effector differentiation. They are, likewise, involved in the induction and maintenance of immune tolerance in homeostatic conditions. Their phenotypic and functional heterogeneity points to their great plasticity and ability to modulate, according to their microenvironment, the acquired immune response and, at the same time, makes their precise classification complex and frequently subject to reviews and improvement. This review will present general aspects of the DC physiology and classification and will address their potential and actual uses in the management of human disease, more specifically cancer, as therapeutic and monitoring tools. New combination treatments with the participation of DC will be also discussed.

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Mast cells (MCs) are tissue resident cells, rich in inflammatory mediators, involved in allergic reactions, and with an increasingly recognized role in immunomodulation. Dendritic cells (DCs), on the other hand, are central to the determination of immune response patterns, being highly efficient antigen-presenting cells that respond promptly to changes in their microenvironment. Here, we show that direct cell contact between immature monocyte-derived DCs (iDCs) and MC bends DCs toward tolerance induction. DCs that had direct contact with MC (MC-iDC) decreased HLA-DR but increased PD-L1 expression and stimulated regulatory T lymphocytes, which expresses FoxP3+, secrete TGF-β and IL-10, and suppress the proliferation of mitogen-stimulated naïve T lymphocytes. Furthermore, MC-iDC expressed higher levels of indoleamine-2,3-deoxigenase (IDO), a phenomenon that was blocked by treatment of MC with anti-PD-1 or by the treatment of DCs with anti-PD-L1 or anti-PD-L2, but not by blocking of H1 and H2 histamine receptors on DCs. Contact with MC also increased phosphorylated STAT-3 levels in iDCs. When a STAT-3 inhibitor, JSI-124, was added to the DCs before contact with MC, the MC-iDC recovered their ability to induce allogeneic T cell proliferation and did not increase their IDO expression.

While individuals infected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) manifested a broad range in susceptibility and severity to the disease, the pre-existing immune memory to related pathogens cross-reactive against SARS-CoV-2 can influence the disease outcome in COVID-19. Here, we investigated the potential extent of T cell cross-reactivity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that can be conferred by other coronaviruses and influenza virus, and generated an in silico map of public and private CD8+ T cell epitopes between coronaviruses. We observed 794 predicted SARS-CoV-2 epitopes of which 52% were private and 48% were public. Ninety-nine percent of the public epitopes were shared with SARS-CoV and 5.4% were shared with either one of four common coronaviruses, 229E, HKU1, NL63, and OC43. Moreover, to assess the potential risk of self-reactivity and/or diminished T cell response for peptides identical or highly similar to the host, we identified predicted epitopes with high sequence similarity with human proteome. Lastly, we compared predicted epitopes from coronaviruses with epitopes from influenza virus deposited in IEDB, and found only a small number of peptides with limited potential for cross-reactivity between the two virus families. We believe our comprehensive in silico profile of private and public epitopes across coronaviruses would facilitate design of vaccines, and provide insights into the presence of pre-existing coronavirus-specific memory CD8+ T cells that may influence immune responses against SARS-CoV-2.