Opposing roles of dendritic cells subsets in experimental GN

Classical dendritic cells (DCs) are key players at the interface between innate and adaptive immunity. In the kidney exist 2 major subsets of cDCs: CD11b+ cDCs and CD103+ cDCs. We investigated their function in the most widely used model of experimental glomerulonephritis (GN) in mice: nephrotoxic nephritis (NTN). Consistent with a role for cDCs in nephrotoxic nephritis, depletion of ZBTB46+ cells (all cDCs) attenuated kidney injury, while deficiency of the CD103+ subset of cDCs accelerated injury via a mechanism that involved increased neutrophils. This RNAseq was performed to analyze transcriptional changes in FACS-sorted renal CD11b+ and CD103+ cDCs under healthy conditions and at day 7 of NTN to reveal why both subsets have different functions in GN. Overall design: The study was performed with total of 6 mice (wildtype, male, age 8-12 weeks). 3 mice were sacrificed in the healthy situation, 3 mice were sacrificed 7 days after injection of the nephrotoxic nephritis antiserum (NTN). From each mouse CD11b+ and CD103+ DCs were sorted, resulting in 4 experimental conditions with 3 biological replicates each: CD103_healthy, CD11b_healthy, CD103_NTN, CD11b_NTN.