The effect of leukemia inhibitory factor, a major uterine cytokine, on dendritic cells differentiation

Background: Dendritic cells (DCs) are the leading antigen presenting cells and the key coordinators of the immune responses which their phenotype and function are regulated by the local microenvironment determined generally by cytokines. Accordingly, DCs generated in the uterine milieu are essentially affected by the immune-suppressive cytokines such as IL-10 and TGF-β that leads to generation of tolerogenic DCs to protect the semi-allogenic fetus. Another cytokine which is expressed at highest concentrations in the uterine and is strongly associated with normal pregnancy is Leukemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF). In current study, we investigated the sole effect of LIF on DC precursors to find out any alteration in their phenotype and function.Methods: DCs were generated from the murine bone marrow (BM) precursors in the presence of DC differentiation factors, GM-CSF and IL-4. Selected cultures were also treated by LIF. In flow cytometric analysis, obtained DCs identified by CD11c expression were evaluated for the expression of MHCII, CD40 and CD80 and their endocytic-capacity was assessed by measuring dextran uptake.Result: We found that LIF-treated DCs had increased expression of phenotypic markers CD40, CD86 and MHCII. Meanwhile, LIF-DCs exhibited higher endocytic-capacity for dextran than did normal DC, though this increment was not significant.Conclusion: Our study suggests that LIF significantly increased the phenotypic markers of maturation while maintaining the immature ability of DCs to uptake antigens. So, these results do not contradict the previous studies indicating that uterine DCs have a tolerogenic partially-mature state.

کلیدواژه ها:

LIF ، Uterine cytokines ، Bone-marrow derived dendritic cells