Different professional antigen-presenting cells (APC) have unique characteristics that favor or

Different professional antigen-presenting cells (APC) have unique characteristics that favor or restrict presentation of microbial antigens to T cells, depending on the organism. CD3?, CD14?, CD19?, CD56?, HLA-DR+, and CD83+ with a dendritic morphology, rather than monocyte-derived or tissue (alveolar) macrophages, was the most efficient APC for presentation of CnM. A large number of these cells bound and internalized the organism, and only a small number PD318088 of dendritic cells PD318088 were required for presentation of the mitogen to T cells. Further, the mannose receptor and Fc receptor II were required for presentation of and lymphocyte proliferation in response to CnM. These studies demonstrate the surprising fact that dendritic cells are the most efficient accessory cells for CnM. is an encapsulated yeast that causes pulmonary, meningeal, and disseminated infections in patients with defective T-cell-mediated immunity, such as those with AIDS, hematological malignancies, and organ transplants (9). There is also substantial experimental evidence that T cells are important in cryptococcosis (10, 31, 48). These T cells respond to cognate cryptococcal antigens (30, 44); however, we have recently shown that also possesses a T-cell mitogen. The evidence for a mitogen (CnM) comes from the ability of CnM to stimulate the proliferation of naive T cells, the ability of allogeneic accessory cells to provide costimulatory activity, and the precursor frequency of responding T Casp-8 cells (49, 52). Similar to some bacterial mitogens (2, 41) and cognate peptide antigens (20), uptake and processing of by antigen-presenting cells (APC) was required prior to presentation of CnM to T cells (74). B cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells (DC) are all professional APC. Each of these APC have unique characteristics that favor or restrict presentation of microbial products to T cells, depending on the organism and the nature of the infection. presents unique challenges to APC that include its large size, its rigid cell wall, and its ability to stimulate T cells as a mitogen. Thus, the APC for would have to have robust phagocytic and processing capabilities but might compromise its costimulatory activity because of the potent immunostimulatory activity of a mitogen. With this in mind, macrophages ought to be the most efficient presenters for were determined by light and electron microscopy. Finally, the receptor used for uptake of was examined by employing blocking antibodies. MATERIALS AND METHODS Preparation of strain 67 (ATCC 52817; acapsular mutant) (33) and strain 613 (ATCC 36556; lightly encapsulated; serotype D) (40) were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (Manassas, Va.). The organisms were maintained as previously described (51) on Sabouraud’s slants (Difco, Detroit, Mich.) and passaged to fresh slants monthly. The organisms were killed by autoclaving them at 121C for 15 min and were stored at 4C for up to 3 months. To avoid [3H]thymidine ([3H]TdR) incorporation into growing cells, killed organisms, which had previously been shown to elicit responses similar to those elicited by live organisms (50), were used for all studies. Opsonins (other than normal human sera during the proliferation assay) were not used. Isolation of PBMC and AM. Human peripheral blood was obtained by venipuncture from healthy adults. The blood was anticoagulated by adding 10 U of heparin (Organon-Teknika-Cappel, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada)/ml. The PBMC were purified by centrifugation (800 for 20 min) on a Ficoll-Hypaque density gradient (Lymphoprep; C-six Diagnostics, Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada). The PBMC were harvested and washed three times in Hanks’ balanced salt solution (Gibco, Burlington, Ontario, Canada) and then counted and suspended in complete medium containing RPMI 1640 medium (Gibco), 5% heat-inactivated PD318088 pooled human AB serum (BioWhitaker, Walkersville, Md.), 2 mM l-glutamine (Gibco), 100 U of penicillin/ml, 100 g of streptomycin/ml, 0.2 g of amphotericin B/ml (Gibco), 1 mM sodium pyruvate (Gibco), PD318088 and 0.1 mM nonessential amino acids (Gibco). AM were obtained as previously described (12). Briefly, patients undergoing bronchoscopy who had normal oxygen saturation and no or minimal pulmonary pathology (i.e., bronchoscopy for mild hemoptysis or a coin lesion) were.

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