Dendritic cell response following Chlamydia trachomatis infection in Mus musculus

The lack of effective adaptive immunity against Chlamydia trachomatis leads to chronic or repeated infection and serious disease sequelae. Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells that are crucial for the activation of T cells during C. trachomatis infection. cDC1s and cDC2s are the two main DC subsets responsible for T cell priming, but little is known about how C. trachomatis affects their ability to prime T cells. Using a mouse model of infection, we investigated the responses of cDC1s and cDC2s upon infection. RNA sequencing of DCs from infected mice showed upregulation of cell death pathways. We validated our findings with mouse and human DCs in vitro, also observing C. trachomatis-induced cell death. These results indicate that C. trachomatis may evade the adaptive immune system by directly inducing cell death in DCs.