Background: The identification of antigens on human DC has been a very difficult and elusive task because of the lack of appropriate reagents. Therefore, we evaluated by flow cytometry a panel of mAb that recognize antigens on human DC, aiming to determine the kinetics of DC antigen expression at 7, 14, 21 and 28 days in (i) Dermal DC like cells (Mo-DC) and (ii) Langerhans cell like DC (Mo-LC). In addition we aimed to identify markers for DC subpopulations.

Results: It was found at day 7, that mAb BG6, HP-F1, BU10, RFD-1, CMRF-44 recognized <20% of Mo-DC. In contrast, 7H5, ZM3.8, CDlb/c, 55K-2, MMR1.16, MMR190.BB3 and L25 reacted with >50% of Mo-DC. Moreover, 7H5, ZM3.8, CMRF-56, CDlb/c, 55K-2, MMR1.16, MMR190.BB3 and L25 showed increased MFI reactivity against Mo-DC. mAb BG6, BU10 and CMRF-44 recognized <20% Mo-LC while RFD-1 reacted with 21% of Mo-LC. In contrast, HP-F1 showed 87% of Mo-LC positive. Also, 7H5, ZM3.8, RFD-7, MR15-2, CDlb/c, 55K-2, MMR1.16, MMR190.BB3 and L25 reacted with >50% of Mo-LC. The increase in % of positive cells was paralleled by MFI increases. At day 14, fourteen mAb recognized >50% of the Mo-DC, while five recognized 20-50% of Mo-DC. BG6 reacted with 7% of the Mo-DC. Nineteen mAb recognized >48% of Mo-LC while BG6 had negative reactivity. At day 21 and 28, all mAb reacted with >20% of Mo-DC and yielded a significant MFI with Mo-DC. Also nineteen mAb yielded significant MFI with Mo-LC while RFD-7 did not.

Conclusions: The immunophenotyping assays demonstrated differences between the two DC populations as well as variations in the reactivity of the mAb at diverse time points, suggesting the existence of subpopulations within the Mo-DC and Mo-LC.