Influence of T and B lymphocytes on the antigen presentation capacities of splenic conventional dendritic cells

The goal of this project was to characterize DCs from lymphopenic mice, like RAG (recombination activated gene) deficient mice and to examine the influence of mature B and T cells on the antigen presenting ability of splenic cDCs. We demonstrate how cellular cross-talk can shape the character and function of cDCs. Lymphopenic conditions, where splenic cDCs have to develop and differentiate, drastically change their character and their ability to cross-present soluble antigen. In this approach we sorted out two populations (CD8α+ and CD8α-) of splenic dendritic cells (DCs) from untreated WT, and RAG2-/- C57Bl/6 mice. The age of mice was between 8-10 weeks. Further we isolated RNA and performed microarray analysis. Each DCs population was repeated twice.