Impaired TNFa-driven dendritic cell activation limits LPS-induced protection from asthma in infants.

We found that approximately 200 genes were differentially expressed between CD11b+ lung-migratory dendritic cells (CD11b+ mDCs) from adult and infant mice treated with house dust mite allergen + LPS, and that the TNFa-via NFkB signaling pathway was significantly enriched in CD11b+ mDCs from adults relative to those from infants. Specifically, out of the 200 genes in the hallmark TNFa-via NFkB signaling pathway that were analyzed, 31 genes were significantly downregulated in CD11b+ mDCs from infants compared to CD11b+ mDCs from adults. We conducted an RNA-seq analysis on sorted CD11b+ lung-migratory dendritic cells (CD11b+ mDCs: B220-CD64-CD103-CD11c+MHCIIhiCD11b+) from adult (7wks-old) and infant (2-3wks-old) mice obtained from the mediastinal lymph node (mLN) 24 hours after house dust mite allergen (HDM) +LPS intranasal sensitization. This analysis was performed to identify and quantify differentially expressed genes and differentially enriched signaling pathways between CD11b+ mDCs from adults and infants.