title: Alteration of balance between myeloid dendritic cells and plasmacytoid dendritic cells in peripheral blood of patients with asthma.
abstract: Asthma, a well-known helper T cell Type 2 (Th2)-mediated disease, has a polarized immune response toward a Th2 phenotype. However, the factors causing the Th2 polarization remain to be fully determined in this disease. Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent antigen-presenting cells that play a central role in initiating the primary immune response. In human blood, two functional distinct subsets of DCs, myeloid DCs and plasmacytoid DCs, have been identified. Myeloid DCs (mDCs) and plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) are also called Type 1 DCs (DC1) and Type 2 DCs (DC2), respectively, because mDCs and pDCs were shown to preferentially differentiate naive T cells into Th1 and Th2 cells, respectively. In asthma, it can thus be speculated that an altered balance of mDCs to pDCs toward pDCs may contribute to the Th2 polarization. To clarify this, we examined the numbers of mDCs and pDCs in the peripheral blood of 44 patients with asthma and 38 normal subjects, using multicolor flow cytometry. We found that the patients with asthma had a significantly higher number of pDCs, resulting in a significant decrease in the ratio of mDCs to pDCs compared with normal subjects. These data indicate that the patients with asthma had a polarization of the mDC:pDC balance toward pDCs, which may be involved in producing the Th2-dominant immune phenotype in asthma.
authors.affiliation: Second Division, Department of Internal Medicine, and Department of Dermatology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Matsuda
authors.forename: Takafumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suda
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hashizume
authors.forename: Koushi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yokomura
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Asada
authors.forename: Kenichiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Kingo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chida
authors.forename: Hirotoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakamura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001249:Asthma / Q000097:blood* / Q000276:immunology; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000145:classification* / Q000276:immunology; D005260:Female; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D016179:Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor / Q000097:blood; D006801:Humans; D007377:Interleukin-3 / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male
chemical_list: D007377:Interleukin-3; D016179:Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor