"Double-duty" Conventional Dendritic Cells in the Amphibian Xenopus As the Prototype for Antigen Presentation to B Cells

Overview

Journal Eur J Immunol

Specialty Allergy & Immunology

Date 2017 Dec 14

PMID 29235109

Citations 19

Authors

Harold R Neely

Jacqueline Guo

Emily M Flowers

Michael F Criscitiello

Martin F Flajnik

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Two populations of dendritic cells (DCs) are found in mammals, one derived from hematopoietic precursors (conventional/cDC), and another derived from mesenchymal precursors, the follicular DC (FDC); the latter is specialized for antigen presentation to B cells, and has only been definitively demonstrated in mammals. Both cDC and FDC are necessary for induction of germinal centers (GC) and GC-dependent class switch recombination (CSR) and somatic hypermutation (SHM). We demonstrate that in Xenopus, an amphibian in which immunoglobulin CSR and SHM occur without GC formation, a single type of DC has properties of both cDC and FDC, including high expression of MHC class II for the former and display of native antigen at the cell surface for the latter. Our data confirm that the advent of FDC functionality preceded emergence of bona fide FDC, which was in turn crucial for the development of GC formation and efficient affinity maturation in mammals.

Citing Articles

The Amphibian Major Histocompatibility Complex-A Review and Future Outlook.

Sabino-Pinto J, Maan M J Mol Evol. 2025; 93(1):38-61.

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Shibasaki Y, Afanasyev S, Fernandez-Montero A, Ding Y, Watanabe S, Takizawa F Sci Immunol. 2023; 8(90):eadf1627.

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