Earle's balanced salts solution and rapamycin differentially regulate the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin-induced maturation of human dendritic cells

Abstract

Autophagy has been shown to enhance the efficacy of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine by increasing the peptide presentation of dendritic cells (DCs). Earle's balanced salts solution (EBSS) is a saline solution with physiological pH which is often used to induce autophagy, while rapamycin is a pharmacological reagent used for autophagy induction. In the present study, we studied the effect of EBSS and rapamycin on the maturation of DCs infected with BCG. The phenotype and function of the DCs were assessed by measuring the expression of CD86 and HLA-DR and the secretion of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a and interleukin (IL)-12p40. Autophagy was evaluated by the level of LC3-II, a molecular marker for autophagy. Following the stimulation of autophagy by EBSS, the DCs that matured in the presence of BCG showed enhanced CD86 and HLA-DR expression and increased IL-12p40 and TNF-a production. In contrast, following the stimulation of autophagy by rapamycin, the DCs that matured in the presence of BCG showed decreased expression of CD86 and reduced production of IL-12p40 and TNF-a. These results demonstrated that EBSS and rapamycin differentially regulate the BCGinduced maturation of human DCs. This suggests that EBSS could contribute to an enhanced adaptive immune response against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, whereas rapamycin, as an immune depressor, may decrease the adaptive immune response against M. tuberculosis.

Gemcitabine sensitizes pancreatic cancer cells to the CTLs antitumor response induced by BCG-stimulated dendritic cells via a Fas-dependent pathway

“…A large number of studies showed that multiple components of BCG, such as cell wall [24], DNA fraction [25], and heat shock proteins [26], could activate DCs, and thus induce CTLs response. Consistent with previous research [27], we chose an MOI of 1 to stimulate DCs, and found that the markers of mature DCs were upregulated significantly. In addition, BCG-stimulated DCs promoted proliferation of autologous T cells.…”

Promotion of autophagosome–lysosome fusion via salvianolic acid A-mediated SIRT1 up-regulation ameliorates alcoholic liver disease

“…The protective effects of autophagy during chronic ethanol consumption were further confirmed using the autophagy activator Earle's balanced salt solution (EBSS). 38 SalA and EBSS treatment reversed ethanol-induced cell injury ( Fig. 3c ).…”

Mycobacterium tuberculosis and HIV coinfection : Effects on innate immunity and strategies to boost the immune response

“…How autophagy is induced might however be important. For example by inducing autophagy with Earle's balanced salts solution (EBSS) in BCG infected DCs, cytokine production was promoted and expression of HLA-DR was increased, while treatment with rapamycin had the opposite effect (225). Since rapamycin is a rather poor inducer of autophagy in mammalian cells with its effect depending on cell type (212), we additionally used Torin1 in our experiments (Paper I).…”