| Condyloma acuminatum (CA) is a cutaneous or mucosal benign hypertrophic desease that usually occurs in the genitourinary region. It is due primarily to non-oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPVs) types, usually types 6 and 11. The morbidity of CA is rising rapidly and it becomes the one of most common sexually transmitted diseases in the world. CA should be treated and controlled carefully because of its frequent relapse and the risk of malignancy. The treatment of CA may be long and tiresome owing to frequent recurrences (28%~65%), which results in growing numbers of the patients suffered from CA. As we know that physical or chemical therapies can't eradicate HPVs completely. Recent studies showed that the recurrence of the CA was associated with local immune deficiency in HPVs-infected lesion. Many scholars are trying to improve the host anti-virus immunity by immune modulating agents such as interferon, interleukin, imiquimod and so on. But these agents are not specific to the HPVs. So the key point of CA therapy is to be likely to enhance the contact between viralantigens and immunocytes, and consequently to elicit host specific cellular immuneresponses especially in the infected region.Dendritic cells (DCs) are a unique set of highly potent antigen-presenting cells (APCs) which are very important in induction and maintenance of immunity against a variety of pathogens, including viruses as well as tumors. DCs have very strong antigen presenting ability and express high levels of antigen-presenting molecules MHC-I and MHC-II, costimulatory molecules CD80 and CD86, and cell adhesion molecules CD50, CD54, CD40 and so on. DCs have been shown to be important for the induction of T cell responses in vitro as well as in vivo. For example, in vitro-generated DCs which were loaded with either tumor antigens or peptides have been shown to induce therapeutic immune responses in animal models as well as in clinical settings. Similar results were obtained by using peptide-loaded DCs in vitro with human peripheral blood lymphocyte (PEL) or purified CD8+ T cells for the efficient generation of peptide specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. These results suggest that this kind of vaccines might be a promising approach in prophylaxis or treatment of HPVs infection.The activation of DCs is of utmost importance for the efficient priming of T cell responses. Immature DCs located in peripheral tissues are activated by a wide array of stimuli such as bacterial endotoxins, inflammatory cytokines or receptor-mediated events. Activated DCs migrate to secondary lymphoid organs, where DCs are involved in induction of antigen-specific T cells as well as B cell response. Activation of DCs is generally characterized as up-regulation of cell surface markers like MHC class I and II molecules, costimulatory molecules CD80 and CD86, and cell adhesion molecules, as well as cytokines product. Induction of T cell responses, in particular Th1 response leading to activated CTL effector cells, is determined by IL-12 production of the APCs. Furthermore, the expression and secretion of IL-12 may constitute an autocrine signal to DCs, sustaining the potential of DCs to maintain ongoing T cell priming. Therefore, the type of cytokine profile secreted by the APCs which are activated by the antigens orpathogens determines the nature of the immune response induced. It has been shown that IL-12 is important in induction of immune responses against intracellular pathogens as well as viral infections and against tumor cells.In this study, we investigate the changes of the DCs' immunological function after the monocyte-drived DCs were pulsed with the crude extracts from CA lesion in vitro. Then some phenotype changes such as CD86 and HLA-DR of DCs were observed; the IL-12 production of DCs, the proliferating capacity of T lymphocytes and the IFN-y production of lymphocytes stimulated by DCs were analyzed.Materials and MethodsMaterials: Umbilical cord blood was obtained from normal term fetus and peripheral blood wa...
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