Congrès annuel de la SFT - Brest, 13 et 14 octobre 2005
"Allergies et Toxiques "

Improvement of human dendritic cells culture for immunotoxicological investigations

HYMERY N, SIBIRIL Y and PARENT-MASSIN D.

Laboratory of Food Toxicology, EA 3880, West Brittany University,
Technopôle Brest-Iroise 29280 Plouzané, France.


A toxic injury such as a decrease in immature dendritic cells by a cytotoxic effect or a disturbance in the maturation process can be responsible of immunodepression. It appears necessary to improve in vitro assays on human dendritic cells in order to detect and evaluate adverse effects of xenobiotics on human dendritic cells.

Two aspects have been explored: cytotoxic effects on immature dendritic cells, and interference of xenobiotics with the dendritic cell maturation phenomenon. Two origins of dendritic cells have been tested. Dendritic cells were obtained either from umbilical cord blood CD34+ , or for the first time from umbilical cord blood monocytes. A cytotoxicity assay on immature dendritic cells has been improved. In the first time, cell population has been characterised. In order to study the potential adverse effects of xenobiotics on the maturation process of dendritic cells several parameters such as markers expression (CD86, HLA-DR), interleukine 10 and 12 secretion. The relevance and the efficiency of the protocol have been tested using, three natural food contaminants (T-2, DON and domoic acid), known to be immunotoxic or not. Assays using dendritic cell cultures derived from monocyte isolated from umbilical cord blood, revealed their usefulness for investigating xenobiotic immunotoxicity towards immune primary reactions.