A preliminary study on the biological characteristics and function of tolerogenic dendritic cells induced by tacrolimus

To explore the biological characteristics and the immuno-suppression function of tolerogenic dendritic cells (tDC) induced by tacrolimus. Human monocytes derived from peripheral blood were cultured in the cGMP-compliant CellGro DC medium supplemented with GM-CSF and IL-4 to obtain dendritic cells (DCs), and 0.1 μmol/L immunosuppressive drug tacrolimus was added to the culture medium at the third and fifth day to obtain tDCs. The molecular markers of them and the livability were assayed by flow cytometry. Then the tolerance functionality of tDCs induced by many agents and these tDCs modulated allogeneic CD4 T cells was determined via CFSE proliferation assay. And the research also analyzed the biological characters and immunosuppression function of tDCs induced by tacrolimus after storing. tDCs induced by tacrolimus exhibit a typical tolerogenic phenotype, whose level of costimulatory molecules CD80, CD83, CD86 and HLA-DR is (2.95 ± 1.32)%, (2.33 ± 1.60)%, (90.02 ± 7.42)% and (91.80 ± 6.18)%, respectively. It'