Dendritic cells: the yin and yang in disease progression

Abstract

Dendritic cells (DCs) are antigen presenting cells that link innate and adaptive immunity. DCs have been historically considered as the most effective and potent cell population to capture, process and present antigens to activate naïve T cells and originate favorable immune responses in many diseases, such as cancer. However, in the last decades, it has been observed that DCs not only promote beneficial responses, but also drive the initiation and progression of some pathologies, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In line with those notions, different therapeutic approaches have been tested to enhance or impair the concentration and role of the different DC subsets. The blockade of inhibitory pathways to promote DCs or DC-based vaccines have been successfully assessed in cancer, whereas the targeting of DCs to inhibit their functionality has proved to be favorable in IBD. In this review, we (a) described the general role of DCs, (b) explained the DC subsets and their role in immunogenicity, (c) analyzed the role of DCs in cancer and therapeutic approaches to promote immunogenic DCs and (d) analyzed the role of DCs in IBD and therapeutic approaches to reduced DC-induced inflammation. Therefore, we aimed to highlight the “yin-yang” role of DCs to improve the understand of this type of cells in disease progression.

Differential Response of Human Dendritic Cells upon Stimulation with Encapsulated or Non-Encapsulated Isogenic Strains of Porphyromonas gingivalis

“…We must highlight this limitation of our study, given that we did not analyze the effect of the P. gingivalis capsule on T lymphocytes, which, by definition, are the cells directly responsible for developing an immune response with a particular Th pattern. Furthermore, unlike the broader repertoire of cytokines T lymphocytes can produce, we only analyzed a limited number of cytokines among those that dendritic cells produce [61,62]. Even so, we consider that our study is an essential contribution to defining the role of the extracellular capsule of P. gingivalis in the induction of a pro-inflammatory and osteolytic immune response since dendritic cells contribute significantly to determining the type of T lymphocyte response deployed after antigen presentation.…”