Immune privilege of stem cells.

Immune privilege provides protection to vital tissues or cells of the body when foreign antigens are introduced into these sites. The modern concept of relative immune privilege applies to a variety of tissues and anatomical structures, including the hair follicles and mucosal surfaces. Even sites of chronic inflammation and developing tumors may acquire immune privilege by recruiting immunoregulatory effector cells.

Cross-presentation of tumour antigens by human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived CD141(+)XCR1+ dendritic cells.

Monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDC) have been widely used in cancer immunotherapy but show significant donor-to-donor variability and low capacity for the cross-presentation of tumour-associated antigens (TAA) to CD8(+) T cells, greatly limiting the success of this approach. Given recent developments in induced pluripotency and the relative ease with which induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines may be generated from individuals, we have succeeded in differentiating dendritic cells (DC) from human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A(*)0201(+) iPS cells (iPS cell-derived DC (ipDC)), using protocols compliant with their subsequent clinical application. Unlike moDC, a subset of ipDC was found to coexpress CD141 and XCR1 that have been shown previously to define the human equivalent of mouse CD8α(+) DC, in which the capacity for cross-presentation has been shown to reside.

Introduction of retired breeder F344/DuCrj rats for aging research.

Male retired breeder F344/DuCrj rats of 17 months of age were purchased in three lots and maintained for aging studies until 25 months of age. These rats were compared with male virgin rats of the same strain for survival percentage, body weight and food consumption. In the retired breeders, decrease in body weight and low food consumption were noted after delivery, and one or two months were required for these parameters to return to the delivery level.