Swiss
A method for generating millions of dendritic cells at a time has come to light. The discovery looks set to revolutionise dendritic cell biology research with potential advantages for allergy treatments, autoimmunity and vaccinations. Anna Demming speaks to Professor Hans Acha-Orbea about the impending impact of his research
revolutionise immunology research Dendritic cells by the billion
The discovery of the role of dendritic cells in the immune system presented enormous opportunities for the development of new vaccines and disease treatments. The importance of the work won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2011. However, until now research in dendritic cell biology has been hampered by the difficulties associated with isolating the cells so that they can be made
available in large numbers for
reproducible experiments. “There are maybe 10 or 20 subsets of dendritic cells in the body, and to purify one of those subsets is a full day’s work, and then they die,” explains Professor Acha-Orbea. In fact there are generally only about 10-12 hours available for experiments before the cells die. Now Professor Acha-Orbea and his colleagues at the University of Lausanne have demonstrated how to generate billions of dendritic cells at a time in mouse tumour cell lines.
He describes dendritic cells as the
“regulators of the immune response”. They are at the interface between the innate and the adaptive immune response and determine whether an immune response results or a tolerance is developed. The researchers came upon the tumours of
dendritic cells in mice during research into Langerhans
cell histiocytosis, a disease
with dendritic cell accumulation in humans. “We made a mouse that spontaneously made tumours of dendritic cells,” he explains. “Now we can make cell lines from them and do lots of biology, and this became so interesting that we moved away from the other projects.” Key to the potential of the dendritic cell
tumours is the reproducibility of the system. Characterization of the cells has confirmed that they behave just like freshly isolated cells, which are very hard to come by. This makes large-scale screening possible and opens the door to proteomics
approaches and experiments with genetic modifications. “I would never have thought it was possible to grow them to large quantities and do real biology with them, but this is possible and it’s an incredible tool,” adds Professor Acha-Orbea. “Basically it’s like a screening tool for new ideas, which you can then confirm with normal dendritic cells.” There are many groups world-wide
currently working in dendritic cell biology, both in mice and in humans. However no- one else has reported the ability to grow tumours of dendritic
cells and thereby
generate them in such huge quantities. The group at the University of Lausanne is already collaborating with other groups across the world, including in Munich and Geneva, but the new capability is still not widely known. As knowledge of the new capability spreads Professor Acha-Orbea expects an explosive burst of activity and new collaborations. “The thing is you are
Adherent dendritic cell line seeded at low density 40 Insight Publishers | Projects
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