Murine plasmacytoid dendritic cells induce effector/memory CD8+ T-cell responses in vivo after viral stimulation

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Abstract
Like their human counterparts, mouse plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) play a central role in innate immunity against viral infections, but their capacity to prime T cells in vivo remains unknown. We show here that virus-activated pDCs differentiate into antigen-presenting cells able to induce effector/memory CD8+ T-cell responses in vivo against both epitopic peptides and endogenous antigen, whereas pDCs activated by synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides containing unmethylated cytosine-guanine motifs (CpG) acquire only the ability to recall antigen-experienced T-cell responses. We also show that immature pDCs are unable to induce effector or regulatory CD8+ T-cell responses. Thus, murine pDCs take part in both innate and adaptive immune responses by directly priming naive CD8+ T cells during viral infection.