Antigen uptake, processing and presentation to T-cells is still functional in dendritic cells surviving photodynamic treatment

Full text: The effect of photodynamic therapy (PDT) on anti-tumoral immune reactions is still discussed controversially. Several studies have demonstrated that PDT is able to activate immune reactions against tumor antigens. However, there is also evidence that PDT exerts immunosuppressive effects. Dendritic cells (DC) are professional antigen presenting cells and play an important role in, both, the induction of immune reactions as well as the induction and maintenance of immunologic tolerance. Therefore, we investigated the effect of hypericin-mediated PDT on the capability of bone marrow-derived DC for antigen uptake, processing and presentation to CD4+ T lymphocytes. Using beta-galactosidase as model antigens we found that, under sublethal PDT conditions, antigen is still incorporated and degraded by surviving DC. PDT-treated DC, in the presence of beta-galactosidase, were still able to re-activate splenic T cells from immunized but not from naive mice. Similarly, naive allogenic T cells were activated in an antigen-independent manner by PDT-treated DC, albeit at lower efficiency as compared to untreated DC. Based on these data, we hypothesize that DC localized in PDT-treated tumor lesions could play a role in the regulation of anti-tumor immune reactions. (author)