Breaktrough in Vaccine Development
Dendritic cells are important building blocks of the human immune system and a recent research regarding their formation and differentiation in the bone marrow could shine a light in the development of new vaccines.
The study shows the point in the cell evolution where dendritic cells in mice differentiate from monocytes and it was conducted at The Rockefeller University by a team of scientist lead by Michel C. Nussenzweig, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, who stated that “the different types have different biological properties. Defining how they arise is important in terms of being able to target individual types, which could be very significant for vaccine development.”
While earlier studies shown that there are two kinds of dendritic cells – cDCs (classical spleen dendritic cells) and pDCs (plasmacytoid dendritic cells) – which, as well as monocytes, share a common “mother” cell in the marrow, the challenge stood in finding out the precise point where the differentiation takes place. This challenge was taken upon by Professor Kang Liu, a postdoctoral associate in Nussenzweig’s lab, who focused her studies on cDCs (the cells more likely to replace monocytes in vaccine development) and with few clues regarding the appearance of newly formed cells she managed to create specific markers which later lead to finding what she would later call preclassical spleen dendritic cells (pre-cDCs) in bone marrow, blood and lymph organs. In collaboration with Gabriel Victora and Tanja Schwickert, she was also able to conduct tests that revealed the path of formation of the cDCs, from differentiation and transformation in pre-cDCs in the bone marrow to the migration as fully formed cells in the blood stream and later in the lymph system. The team also established the paths of formation for pDCs and monocytes.
The discovery of the dendritic cell precursor could represent a great breakthrough in immunotherapy, offering the possibility of developing real dendritic cells to be used in vaccines, rather than the monocytes chemically adjusted to develop dendritic cell-like qualities.
