Gap Junctions at the Dendritic Cell-T Cell Interface Are Key Elements for Antigen-Dependent T Cell Activation

摘要: The acquired immune response begins with Ag presentation by dendritic cells (DCs) to naive T in a heterocellular cell-cell contact-dependent process. Although both DCs and are known express connexin43, gap junction protein subunit, the role of connexin43 on initiation cell responses remains be elucidated. In present work, we report formation junctions between their activation during DCs. cocultures cells, Lucifer yellow microinjected into is transferred adjacent transgenic CD4 + only if specific antigenic peptide was at least first 24 h cocultures. This dye transfer sensitive blockers, such as oleamide, small peptides containing extracellular loop sequences conexin. Furthermore, this system, blockers drastically reduced reflected lower proliferation, CD69 expression, IL-2 secretion. produced not due expression CD80, CD86, CD40, MHC-II blocker did affect polyclonal induced anti-CD3 plus anti-CD28 Abs absence These results strongly suggest that functional assemble interface they play an essential activation.