Contact hypersensitivity and Langerhans cells.

Allergens or antigens when introduced on or in the skin may become localized at the surface of and in Langerhans cells (LCs). Langerhans cells are a strategically situated cell population able to migrate into lymphatics and lymph nodes. During the course of contact allergic reactions, they are apposed to lymphocytes; some LCs are injured by interaction with lymphocytes and by antigen-antibody complexes plus complement.

Langerhans cells as macrophages in skin and lymphoid organs.

Properties of epidermal Langerhans cell were compared with those of a number of other dendritic cells in lymphoid organs and of mononuclear phagocytes. Among the dendritic "reticulum" cells included were indeterminate cells from the epidermis, interdigitating "reticulum" cells from T-dependent areas of lymphoid tissue and thymus, follicular dendritic cells of Nossal, and the dendritic cells described by Steinman and Cohn. Interdigitating cells with typical Birbeck granules, in the thymus and in the paracortices of lymph nodes, which are morphologically indistinguishable from Langerhans cells and indeterminate dendritic cells in the epidermis, appear to belong to the same system and possibly represent a subpopulation of "macrophages.