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Guidelines for mouse and human DC functional assays.

European journal of immunology

Authors: Björn E Clausen, Lukas Amon, Ronald A Backer, Luciana Berod, Tobias Bopp, Anna Brand, Sven Burgdorf, Luxia Chen, Meihong Da, Ute Distler, Regine J Dress, Diana Dudziak, Charles-Antoine Dutertre, Christina Eich, Anna Gabele, Melanie Geiger, Florent Ginhoux, Lucila Giusiano, Gloria J Godoy, Ahmed E I Hamouda, Lukas Hatscher, Lukas Heger, Gordon F Heidkamp, Lola C Hernandez, Lukas Jacobi, Tomasz Kaszubowski, Wan Ting Kong, Christian H K Lehmann, Tamara López-López, Karsten Mahnke, Dominik Nitsche, Jörg Renkawitz, Rifat A Reza, Pablo J Sáez, Laura Schlautmann, Madeleine T Schmitt, Anna Seichter, Malte Sielaff, Tim Sparwasser, Patrizia Stoitzner, Giorgi Tchitashvili, Stefan Tenzer, Nounagnon R Tochoedo, Damir Vurnek, Fabian Zink, Thomas Hieronymus

This article is part of the Dendritic Cell Guidelines article series, which provides a collection of state-of-the-art protocols for the preparation, phenotype analysis by flow cytometry, generation, fluorescence microscopy, and functional characterization of mouse and human dendritic cells (DC) from lymphoid organs and various non-lymphoid tissues. Recent studies have provided evidence for an increasing number of phenotypically distinct conventional DC (cDC) subsets that on one hand exhibit a certain functional plasticity, but on the other hand are characterized by their tissue- and context-dependent functional specialization. Here, we describe a selection of assays for the functional characterization of mouse and human cDC. The first two protocols illustrate analysis of cDC endocytosis and metabolism, followed by guidelines for transcriptomic and proteomic characterization of cDC populations. Then, a larger group of assays describes the characterization of cDC migration in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo. The final guidelines measure cDC inflammasome and antigen (cross)-presentation activity. While all protocols were written by experienced scientists who routinely use them in their work, this article was also peer-reviewed by leading experts and approved by all co-authors, making it an essential resource for basic and clinical DC immunologists.

© 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Immunology published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.

PMID: 36563126

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