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Although interleukin 12 (IL-12) production by dendritic cells (DCs) confers protection against harmful invasions by regulating both innate and adaptive immunity, its dysregulation may have detrimental effects on the host. We show here that phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) negatively regulates IL-12 synthesis by DCs. We found that numerous stimuli that induced IL-12 production concomitantly elicited PI3K activation in DCs, but both PI3K(-/-) and PI3K inhibitor#150;treated DCs showed increased IL-12 production. Accordingly, an enhanced T helper type 1 (T(H)1) response was observed upon Leishmania major infection in PI3K(-/-) mice. Our findings indicate that a negative feedback mechanism exists that regulates IL-12 production during DC activation and may help prevent the excessive T(H)1 polarization that causes undesirable immune responses.

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We investigated the role of antigen-presenting cells in early interferon (IFN)-γ production in normal and recombinase activating gene 2–deficient (Rag-2−/−) mice in response to Listeria monocytogenes (LM) infection and interleukin (IL)-12 administration. Levels of serum IFN-γ in Rag-2−/− mice were comparable to those of normal mice upon either LM infection or IL-12 injection. Depletion of natural killer (NK) cells by administration of anti-asialoGM1 antibodies had little effect on IFN-γ levels in the sera of Rag-2−/− mice after LM infection or IL-12 injection. Incubation of splenocytes from NK cell–depleted Rag-2−/− mice with LM resulted in the production of IFN-γ that was completely blocked by addition of anti–IL-12 antibodies. Both dendritic cells (DCs) and monocytes purified from splenocytes were capable of producing IFN-γ when cultured in the presence of IL-12. Intracellular immunofluorescence analysis confirmed the IFN-γ production from DCs. It was further shown that IFN-γ was produced predominantly by CD8α+ lymphoid DCs rather than CD8α− myeloid DCs. Collectively, our data indicated that DCs are potent in producing IFN-γ in response to IL-12 produced by bacterial infection and play an important role in innate immunity and subsequent T helper cell type 1 development in vivo.