
Abstract
Conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) are potent antigen-presenting cells (APCs) that integrate signals from their environment allowing them to direct situation-adapted immunity. Thereby they harbor great potential for being targeted in vaccination, autoimmunity, and cancer. Here, we use fate mapping, functional analyses, and comparative cross-species transcriptomics to show that RORγt+ DCs are a conserved, functionally versatile, and transcriptionally distinct type of DCs. RORγt+ DCs entail various populations described in different contexts including Janus cells/RORγt-expressing extrathymic Aire-expressing cells (eTACs), subtypes of Thetis cells, RORγt+-DC (R-DC) like cells, cDC2C and ACY3+ DCs. We show that in response to inflammatory triggers, RORγt+ DCs can migrate to lymph nodes and in the spleen can activate naïve CD4+ T cells. These findings expand the functional repertoire of RORγt+ DCs beyond the known role of eTACs and Thetis cells in inducing T cell tolerance to self-antigens and intestinal microbes in mice. We further show that RORγt+ DCs with proinflammatory features accumulate in autoimmune neuroinflammation in mice and men. Thus, our work establishes RORγt+ DCs as immune sentinel cells that exhibit a broad functional spectrum ranging from inducing peripheral T cell tolerance to T cell activation depending on signals they integrate from their environment.
Dokumententyp: | Zeitschriftenartikel |
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Fakultät: | Medizin
Medizin > Institut für Immunologie Medizin > Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (SyNergy) Medizin > Klinikum der LMU München > Neurologische Klinik und Poliklinik mit Friedrich-Baur-Institut |
Fakultätsübergreifende Einrichtungen: | Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences (GSN) |
Themengebiete: | 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften > 610 Medizin und Gesundheit |
URN: | urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-124794-8 |
ISSN: | 0027-8424 |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Dokumenten ID: | 124794 |
Datum der Veröffentlichung auf Open Access LMU: | 30. Mrz. 2025 16:39 |
Letzte Änderungen: | 30. Mrz. 2025 16:39 |
DFG: | Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 390857198 |