Fetal calf serum-primed dendritic cells induce a strong anti-fetal calf serum immune response and diabetes protection in the non-obese diabetic mouse.

In recent years, several investigators have shown that transfer of dendritic cells (DC) prevents diabetes development in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. Accumulating evidences showing that DC cultured in medium containing fetal calf serum (FCS) can induce a dominant unspecific immune response in tumor models after i.v. injection prompted us to investigate if the protecting effect of DC on diabetes development in NOD mice might be supported by the induction of an anti-FCS immune response in recipient mice. Five-week-old NOD mice were injected i.v. with FCS-cultured bone marrow-derived DC or PBS as control. Levels of anti-FCS and anti-bovine serum albumin (BSA) antibodies were measured in the serum of recipient mice. Anti-FCS cellular immune responses were also analysed after a single DC injection using in vitro proliferation of splenocytes either in RPMI supplemented with FCS, AIMV-BSA or RPMI containing autologous mouse serum or BSA as a read out. DC injection prevented diabetes development in NOD mice and high titers of anti-FCS and anti-BSA antibodies were detected in serum of all DC-injected mice. Besides, splenocytes isolated from DC-injected mice proliferated vigorously in the presence of bovine proteins in contrast to splenocytes isolated from control mice but removing bovine proteins abrogated the high level of proliferation of those splenocytes suggesting that lymphocytes have been primed against bovine proteins in vivo after DC injection. All together, our data show that DC transfer induced cellular and humoral anti-FCS immune responses in recipient NOD mice suggesting that the protective effect of DC relies on their unspecific immunostimulatory effects.