To assess the percentage of cell death, cells were first stained for surface markers and then with TOPRO-3 (Invitrogen) (10 nM). Following culture (day 4) CD8+ T cells were mixed with 51Chromium-labeled p815 cells in the presence or absence
of anti-CD3 OKT3 mAb (5 μg/mL) Tanespimycin or with Caki-1 cells. In some experiments, CD8+ T cells and Caki-1 cells were co-cultured in the presence of neutralizing anti-human TRAIL (RIK-2) and/or FasL (NOK-2) mAb (10 μg/mL). Cytotoxity activity of CMVpp65495–503-specific CD8+ T cells was assayed against control or CMV peptide-pulsed 51chromium-labeled HLA-A2+ T2 cells. 51Chromium release was counted in a Topcount (Packard). Lysis percentage was calculated as [(experimental release-spontaneous
release)/(maximum release-spontaneous release)]×100. Lysis by CD3-redirected cytotoxicity was also depicted as Lytic units (LU) (number of effector cells needed to lyse 3000 targets cells) calculated by the formula LU=[1/(E:T50%)]×3000, where E:T50% is the E:T ratio at which 50% of lysis occurred. E:T50% was inferred from the killing curve (Lysis versus E:T ratio). The percentage of specific lysis was calculated after deduction of the non-specific lysis (in the presence of control peptide or IgG) from the total lysis in the presence of specific peptide or OKT3 mAb. Data were analyzed first by the Shapiro Wilk Normality test and then by Paired T or Wilcoxon MS-275 molecular weight signed-rank GPX6 test, depending on whether the data were or were not from a normally distributed sample, respectively. All tests were two-tailed and conducted at 95% of confidence. Financial support was from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciœn (MCI) (SAF2008-03294 y TRA2009_0030), Departamento de Salud (Gobierno de Navarra), Redes Temñticas de Investigación Cooperativa (RD06/0020/0065), Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria
(PI060932), SUDOE (IMMUNONET) and UTE Project CIMA. S.H.-S. was supported by AECC and by MCI (RYC-2007-00928). The authors thank Blood Transfusion Center of Navarra (Spain) and Paul Miller for editing. Conflict of interest: Grant support and reagents from DIGNA-Biotech (Madrid, Spain). I.G., U.M. and J.R. are full time employees of DIGNA-Biotech. Detailed facts of importance to specialist readers are published as ”Supporting Information”. Such documents are peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited or typeset. They are made available as submitted by the authors. “
“Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in regulating innate and adaptive immunity. Our understanding of DC biology has benefited from studies in CD11c.DTR and CD11c.DOG mouse models that use the CD11c promoter to express a diphtheria toxin (DT) receptor transgene to inducibly deplete CD11c+ cells. Other models to inducibly deplete specific DC subsets upon administration of DT have also been generated.