The antigen presenting capacity of human epidermal Langerhans cells.

Dendritic cells (DC) represent a distinct system of antigen-presenting cells (APC) that function to initiate primary T cell responses and are found as a trace population in both lymphoid and non-lymphoid organs. This paper is focused on some properties of epidermal Langerhans cells (LC), the best characterized non-lymphoid DC. The phenotypic markers of LC are reviewed and their immunological function is presented in view of some recent findings partly obtained in our laboratory.