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Blood, 23 April 2009, Vol. 113, No. 17, pp. 3961-3968. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on February 25, 2009; DOI 10.1182/blood-2008-08-176321.
IMMUNOBIOLOGY Novel function for interleukin-7 in dendritic cell development1 Department of Biochemistry, University of Lausanne, Epalinges; and 2 Developmental Immunology, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is crucial for the development of T and B lymphocytes from common lymphoid progenitors (CLPs) and for the maintenance of mature T lymphocytes. Its in vivo role for dendritic cells (DCs) has been poorly defined. Here, we investigated whether IL-7 is important for the development or maintenance of different DC types. Bone marrow–derived DCs expressed the IL-7 receptor (IL-7R) and survived significantly longer in the presence of IL-7. Migratory DCs (migDCs) isolated from lymph nodes also expressed IL-7R. Surprisingly, IL-7R was not required for their maintenance but indirectly for their development. Conventional DCs (cDCs) and plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) resident in lymph nodes and spleen were IL-7R–. Using mixed bone marrow chimeras, we observed an intrinsic requirement for IL-7R signals in their development. As the number of CLPs but not myeloid progenitors was reduced in the absence of IL-7 signals, we propose that a large fraction of cDCs and pDCs derives from CLPs and shares not only the lymphoid origin but also the IL-7 requirement with lymphocyte precursors.
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