[37] As shown in Figs 3 and 4, upon iDC treatment with chemokine combinations of CCL3 + 19 (3 : 7) or (7 : 3), iDCs exhibited extensively ruffled membranes (Figs 3b,c and 4b,c) whereas untreated iDCs did not (Figs. 3a,d and 4a,d). Subsequent LPS treatment

induced large extended veils[44] in addition to ruffled morphologies (Figs 3e–g and 4e–g). Before LPS treatment, untreated iDCs or iDCs treated with both chemokine combinations exhibited spots or speckles Veliparib of fluorescent OVA[45, 46] or LY[47] dispersed in large areas in the cell (Figs. 3a–c and 4a–c). However, after subsequent treatment with LPS, iDCs pre-treated with CCL3 + 19 (3 : 7) exhibited reduced areas of OVA or LY fluorescence, similar to iDCs treated with only LPS (Figs 3e,f and 4e,f). Remarkably,

after subsequent LPS treatment, iDCs pre-treated with CCL3 + 19 (7 : 3) still exhibited OVA or LY spots or speckles showing much brighter accumulations in addition to faint green, indicating more internalized OVA or LY,[48] compared Doramapimod research buy with all other DCs treated with LPS (Figs 3e–g and 4e–g). The morphologies and the endocytic behaviours of iDCs pre-treated with individual chemokines or CCL3 + 19 (5 : 5) were also examined but they did not exhibit morphologies different from iDCs pre-treated with CCL3 + 19 shown in Figs 3 and 4 or endocytic behaviours different from untreated iDCs or iDCs treated only with LPS (data not shown). Co-stimulatory molecule (CD86), MHC Class I and MHC Class II expression on DCs 24 hr after chemokine treatment (Day 1) or 24 hr after subsequent LPS treatment (Day 2) were measured by flow cytometry to assess

the DC phenotypic changes. We originally tried to quantify the immunofluorescence results of surface marker (CD86 and MHC Class I and II) expressions on DCs upon programming and/or subsequent LPS treatment. However, as a result of unexpected variations of minimal response of the negative control (untreated iDCs) between independent trials (data not shown), results observed in this study needed to be normalized Urease to untreated iDCs per trial for further discussion of statistical significance. Also, MFI normalization can represent normalization of the positive cell quantification based on a 5% preset background of each isotype in flow cytometry histograms (data not shown) for each surface molecule examination. For these reasons, we present data in percentage or ratio changes relative to the negative control of untreated iDCs, as ultimately the statistical significance of resultant DC behaviours is investigated, independently from the varying minimal response of immature DCs, upon DC programming by our new protocol. Interestingly, iDCs treated with CCL3 + 19 (3 : 7) or (7 : 3) exhibited CD86 expression levels slightly lower than untreated iDCs before LPS treatment (Fig. 5a).