Impairment of circulating myeloid dendritic cells in immunosuppressed renal/pancreas transplant recipients.

Background: Immunosuppressive drugs used after organ transplantation are known to impair lymphocyte function, resulting in an increased incidence of viral associated malignancies. In vitro data indicate that immunosuppressive drugs also target dendritic cells (DCs). Our study aimed to investigate the phenotype and function of circulating myeloid DCs (mDCs) from renal/pancreas transplant recipients receiving immunosuppressive drugs.

Dendritic cells expand Epstein Barr virus specific CD8+ T cell responses more efficiently than EBV transformed B cells.

Adoptive transfer of Epstein Barr virus (EBV) specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) has been successfully applied in the treatment of EBV associated post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD). In most studies EBV transformed B cells (LCLs) have been used for the induction of EBV specific T cell lines. Application of this approach to other EBV associated tumors is difficult, because LCLs focus T cell expansion toward immunodominant EBV antigens that are not expressed in EBV associated Hodgkin's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.