The Characteristics of New Dendritic Cell Subsets Expressing CD205 and/or CD103 in Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells

There are three types of dendritic cells (DCs) including CD1c+ conventional DCs (cDCs), CD141+cDCs and CD303+plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) in human peripheral blood, however, more details of DC subsets are still obscure. Here we systemically investigated the subpopulations of human blood-derived DCs. Our data showed that there are three subsets of CD1c+cDCs and three subpopulations of CD141+cDCs expressing CD205 and/or CD103 in human peripheral blood. CD303+pDCs can be divided by two groups: CD303high(hi) and CD303lowpDCs expressing CD205 and/or CD103. There are six new subpopulations expressing CD205 and/or CD103 in CD303+pDCs. The protein expression of co-stimulatory molecules and the production of pro-/anti-inflammatory cytokines by these cDC and pDC subsets are different from those of each other. Our results imply that CD1c+CD205-DC, CD141+CD205- cDC and CD303+CD205-pDC subpopulations may be immune tolerogenic and immature DCs, but CD1c+CD205+cDC, CD141+CD205+cDC and CD303+CD205+pDC subsets are probably inflammatory and mature DCs due to their different levels of co-stimulatory molecule expression and pro-/anti-inflammatory cytokine production. The subpopulations of cDCs and pDCs expressing CD205 and/or CD103 in human peripheral blood may perform diverse immune functions according to their different biological features, therefore, these new subsets of cDCs and pDCs may be potential targets for immunotherapy to treat autoimmune diseases and tumors in the clinical trials in the future.