Immature dendritic cells under hypoxic condition

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells whose activity is intrinsically linked to the microenvironment. Hypoxia is a condition of low oxygen tension occurring in inflammatory tissues that creates a special microenvironment conditioning cell physiology. We studied the effects of hypoxia on the differentiation of human monocytes into DCs. Immature DCs were differentiated in vitro from human monocytes under normoxic (iDCs) or hypoxic (Hi-DCs) conditions and the gene expression profile was determined. Hi-DCs expressed novel hypoxia-inducible genes and were characterized by up-regulation of pathways associated with cell movement/migration. Keywords: stress response, cell differentiation The expression profile of immature dendritic cells under normoxia vs hypoxia was studied. Three healthy donors were used as biologial replicates.