Clinical and Vaccine Immunology, September 2006, p. 1064-1069, Vol. 13, No. 9
1071-412X/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/CVI.00178-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Wendy C. Brown,1
William C. Davis,1
Jayne C. Hope,2 and
Guy H. Palmer1*
Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington,1 Institute of Animal Health, Compton, Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom2
Received 16 January 2006/ Returned for modification 21 June 2006/ Accepted 26 July 2006
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While DC lineages have been best studied in mice and humans, there is clear evidence for different lineages in cattle with functional differences in their abilities to stimulate CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses (12, 28). However, these studies have not examined the spleen, the critical organ for priming and expansion of the immune response against blood-borne parasites (4, 8, 26, 27). Consistent with the critical role of the spleen in initiating protective immunity, splenectomy markedly delays the development of antigen-specific immune responses following infection with the blood parasites Anaplasma and Babesia spp., resulting in severe disease and, usually, death (16, 18). With a long-term goal of developing novel vaccines that will effectively induce immune responses that control these important hemoparasitic diseases of cattle, we are focused on improving our understanding of how immune responses are initiated and expanded in the spleen. The objective of the present study was to characterize splenic DCs and determine if they are phenotypically distinct from peripheral blood DCs and previously described bovine DC lineages obtained from afferent lymph (9, 12, 13).
Spleens were surgically removed from healthy male Holstein calves and, rinsed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) containing 20% (vol/vol) acid citrate dextrose (ACD) with 100 U penicillin and 100 µg streptomycin per ml. The spleen was mechanically disrupted using a tissue grinder, and cells were obtained by passing small fragments through a 100-µm-pore-size nylon cell strainer (BD Falcon). Spleen cells were centrifuged at 430 x g and resuspended in four volumes of Tris-buffered 0.87% ammonium chloride for 10 min. Remaining cells were washed in PBS-ACD, suspended in fetal bovine serum containing 10% dimethyl sulfoxide, and cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated from the same calves and cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen using the same procedure as used for the spleen cells. B lymphocytes and monocytes were isolated from PBMC by positive selection using, respectively, the monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) BAQ44A and CAM66A (Table 1). Following 30 min of incubation at 4°C with the appropriate MAb, the cells were washed three times in PBS, incubated with goat anti-murine immunoglobulin M (IgM) microbeads (Milteny Biotec), and positively selected using a magnetic field. Macrophages were derived by culture of adherent PBMC in complete RPMI 1640 medium on 100-mm petri dishes (Becton Dickinson) at 37°C in 5% CO2 for 7 days. Accutase (Innovative Cell Technologies) was used to collect adherent cells.
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TABLE 1. Monoclonal antibodies used for phenotypic analysis and cell sorting
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ß T lymphocytes, 
T lymphocytes, and NK cells (30). The remaining MHC class II molecule-expressing population, putative DCs, was then analyzed morphologically for characteristic dendrite formation, phenotypically for cell surface markers expressed by other bovine DC lineages, and functionally for the ability to present antigen and stimulate lymphocyte responses. This approach was necessary as, in the absence of prior studies of bovine splenic DCs, there are no lineage-specific markers; this approach was also necessary to avoid the bias that all bovine DCs, regardless of lineage, share a common cell surface marker. For sorting, spleen cells and PBMC were incubated with two sets of isotype-specific primary MAbs: (i) IgM MAbs specific for bovine CD2 (expressed on
ß T lymphocytes and NK cells), B lymphocytes, 
T lymphocytes (
-chain specific), and CD14 and (ii) IgG2a MAb specific for bovine MHC class II (HLA-DR orthologue) (Table 1). After incubation for 30 min on ice, cells were washed three times in cold PBS by centrifugation at 430 x g and then incubated with the secondary antibodies, phycoerythrin (PE)-conjugated goat anti-murine IgM and fluorescein isothiocyanate-conjugated goat anti-murine IgG2a, for 15 min on ice. Cells were washed twice in cold PBS, and then putative DCs that were MHC class II positive but negative for CD2, CD14, B-lymphocyte, and 
T-lymphocyte markers were gated and sorted using a Vantage fluorescence-activated cell sorter (Becton Dickinson) (Fig. 1). Sorted putative splenic DCs were then cultured in complete RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 200 ng/ml of recombinant bovine interleukin 4 (IL-4) (10, 24), 100 ng/ml recombinant bovine GM-CSF (23, 24), 100 ng/ml recombinant bovine Flt3 ligand (22, 24), and 10 µg/ml recombinant bovine CD40 ligand (rbCD40L). To obtain bovine CD40L, a DNA construct encoding the extracellular domain of bovine CD40L (CD40L-ED) linked in-frame with the sequence encoding the CD5 secretory signal sequence (7) was generated in the expression vector VR-1055 (Vical). A bovine CD40L-ED-specific forward primer (5' ATACTGCAGATGGTGTATCTTCACAGACGATTG 3') and a bovine CD40L reverse primer (5' ATAGGATCCTCACTTATCGTCATCGTCCTTGTAGTCCCCTGGACCAGGTCCGAGTTTGAGTAAGCCAAATGA 3') were used to PCR amplify the CD40L-ED open reading frame from cDNA generated from bovine T lymphocytes stimulated with ionomycin and phorbol myristic acetate as previously described (11). The reverse primer was extended to include complementary sequence (in bold) of the codons encoding the FLAG tag (amino acid sequence, DYKDDDDK) (20) and also introduced a BamHI restriction site (in italics) at the 3' end of the PCR product, designated cd40ledflag. The CD5 secretory signal sequence was added at the 5' end of cd40ledflag by PCR using two overlapping primers (5' ACCTTGTACCTGCTGGGGATGCTGGTCGCTTCCTGCCTCGGACTGCAGATGGTGTATCTTCACAGACG 3' and 5' ATAGATATCACCATGCCCATGGGGTCTCTGCAACCGCTGGCCACCTTGTACCTGCTGGGGATGCTG 3'), and the second primer introduced an EcoRV restriction site (in bold) at the 5' end of the PCR product. The resultant construct, designated cd5cd40ledflag, was EcoRV-BamHI digested and subcloned into the VR-1055 eukaryotic expression vector to generate a construct designated CD40L-ED. rbCD40L was expressed as FLAG-tagged protein in 293 Free-Style cells (Invitrogen) and affinity purified using Anti-FLAG M2-agarose gel (Sigma) as previously described (24). Purified protein was then tested for biological activity with B lymphocytes positively selected with magnetic beads from PBMC using a modified protocol of a previous study (29). Briefly, B lymphocytes (2 x 105 cells/well) were incubated in triplicate with 200 ng/ml recombinant bovine IL-4 (10, 24) either alone or in combination with rbCD40L in a concentration range between 0.1 ng to 10 µg per ml. Cells were incubated for 72 h at 37°C with 5% CO2, and proliferation was measured by radiolabeling with 0.25 µCi of [3H]thymidine over the last 18 h of culture. Cells were collected using an automated cell harvester (Tomtec), and incorporated [3H]thymidine was counted with a liquid scintillation counter. The stimulation of significant dose-dependent proliferation of B lymphocytes (1, 19) demonstrated that the recombinant cytokine was biologically active (Fig. 2).
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FIG. 1. Isolation of bovine splenic DCs. MHC class II+ cells that were negative for the expression of CD2, CD14, and B- and ![]() T-lymphocyte markers (Lineage) were gated (circled population) for isolation by sorting.
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FIG. 2. Bioassay of recombinant bovine CD40L. The biological activity of rbCD40L was tested by its ability to stimulate B-lymphocyte proliferation in the presence of 200 ng/ml recombinant bovine IL-4 (10, 24). Means ± standard deviations of results from triplicate wells are shown. TdR, thymidine.
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FIG. 3. Morphology of bovine splenic DCs. Immature DCs immediately after sorting (A) and mature DCs after 72 h of culture at magnifications of x300 (B) and x600 (C) are shown.
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FIG. 4. Comparison of the abilities of different antigen-presenting cells to stimulate an allogeneic lymphocyte response and correlation with activation phenotype. (A) Stimulation of allogeneic lymphocyte proliferation by increasing numbers of mature splenic or peripheral blood DCs, macrophages, B lymphocytes, or monocytes. Means ± standard deviations of results from triplicate wells are shown. The response induced by monocytes was identical to that of B lymphocytes and thus is not shown. (B) MHC class II, CD80, and CD86 surface molecule expression on mature splenic and peripheral blood DCs and macrophages (black profile). The background of secondary antibody binding is indicated by the gray profile. TdR, thymidine.
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T-cell-depleted PBMC were stimulated with MSP2 for 1 week, followed by a 1-week rest as previously described (23). The specific MSP2 peptide P16-7, previously shown to be presented by the MHC class II DRB3 *1201 allele (25), or a negative control peptide, P1, were added to autologous splenic DCs or macrophages as antigen-presenting cells and cultured with 3 x 104 cells of the T-lymphocyte cell line. After 72 h, cells were pulsed with [3H]thymidine and harvested as described above. Both splenic DCs and macrophages presented antigen and induced antigen-specific CD4+ T-cell recall responses, with significantly higher responses (P < 0.05) stimulated by DCs when either 300 or 3,000 antigen-presenting cells were used (Fig. 5).
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FIG. 5. Comparison of the abilities of mature splenic DCs and macrophages to induce an antigen-dependent T-lymphocyte recall response. Specific MSP2 peptide antigen (P16-7) or a control peptide (P1) was added to either splenic DCs or macrophages for presentation to an MSP2-specific T-cell line (25). Means ± standard deviations of results from triplicate wells are shown.
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CD14) derived from either peripheral blood or spleen were incubated with MAbs specific for each of the following cell surface markers: CD1, CD11a, CD11b, CD11c, CD13, CD45RO, CD80, CD86, CD172a, and CD205 (Table 1). After incubation for 30 min on ice, cells were washed three times in complete RPMI 1640 medium containing 0.02% sodium azide by centrifugation at 300 x g. Fluorescein isothiocyanate-, PE-, allophycocyanin-, or PE-Cy5-conjugated isotype-specific goat anti-mouse antibodies were used as secondary antibodies (Caltag Laboratories and Southern Biotech). After incubation for 15 min on ice, labeled cells were washed twice in cold PBS and fixed in 1% formaldehyde. A minimum of 80,000 labeled cells were analyzed by flow cytometry using a FACSort (Becton Dickinson). Splenic and peripheral blood DCs were clearly distinct from the B lymphocytes, monocytes, and macrophages, being negative for these lineage-specific markers (data not shown). The splenic DCs were phenotypically distinct from both the peripheral blood DCs and the two previously described types of afferent lymph DCs (Table 2). Between DCs derived from peripheral blood versus spleen, the major surface phenotypic difference was the high level of CD13 (14) expression on the splenic DCs (Fig. 6). The expression of this marker, which is a type II transmembrane protein, was not linked to differential activation status, as both sets of DCs revealed very low or no expression of CD80 or CD86 (Table 2). Splenic DCs also displayed expression levels of CD11b, CD11c, and CD205 different from those of peripheral blood DCs (Fig. 6). CD205, a type I cell surface glycoprotein, is expressed on different DC lineages in mice (15) and has been used as a lineage marker to isolate DCs from the large-sized bovine afferent lymph veiled cells (9, 12, 13). Examination of total gated CD205+ cells in the bovine spleen included both B (CD21+) and T lymphocytes (CD3+) (data not shown). Thus, although the splenic DCs uniformly expressed CD205, CD205 cannot be used as a specific DC marker or as a specific targeting molecule for vaccine delivery. Splenic DCs were also distinct from the two well-described subsets of afferent lymph DCs (12, 13) based on multiple discriminatory surface markers (Table 2). Splenic DCs did not express CD45RO or CD1, which are expressed on both subsets of afferent lymph DCs. Uncultured splenic DCs also exhibited an immature phenotype, as indicated by the low level of CD80/86 expression, while the higher level of expression on the afferent lymph DCs is indicative of a more mature phenotype. |
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TABLE 2. Comparison of bovine DC surface phenotypes
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FIG. 6. Splenic and peripheral blood DCs display distinct cell surface phenotypes. Uncultured DCs were analyzed by flow cytometry. Levels of expression of CD13, CD11b, CD11c, and CD205 are indicated by the solid line. The background of secondary antibody binding is indicated by the light gray dotted lines.
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In the present study we have identified a distinct CD13+ DC population in bovine spleens that is phenotypically unique compared to other peripheral blood, lymph node, and afferent lymph DCs and confirmed its effectiveness in antigen presentation in both the allogeneic T-cell stimulation reaction and the induction of T-cell recall responses. Unlike the two subsets of bovine afferent lymph DCs, which differ in surface phenotype, including in the expression of CD11a, CD13, and CD172a, there was no definitive evidence of multiple splenic DC subsets when the cells were examined either prior to or following activation. However, minor subsets not detected in normal spleens from healthy animals may well be identified if there is specific expansion or activation by delivery of antigens, including the blood-borne pathogens Anaplasma and Babesia, to the spleen. Determining how splenic DCs are activated and migrate following the initial encounter with the pathogen and how priming in the spleen affects T-cell trafficking represent the next challenges for better understanding immunity against these important pathogens.
This work was supported by NIH grant R01 AI44005, USDA grant 2004 35204-1420C, and BARD grant US-3315-02C. Waithaka Mwangi was supported by Immunology Training Program grant T32 AI07025.
Present address: Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. ![]()
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