[Generation of CD14+ dendritic cells in vitro with GM-CSF and IL-4].

This study was conducted to get high quality and sufficient numbers of mature dendritic cells from healthy donor peripheral blood. The experiment began on culturing of plastic-adherent monocytes isolated from healthy donor peripheral blood with granulocyte-monocyte clony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF 150 ng/ml) and interleukin 4 (IL-4 800 U/ml) without fresh medium feeding and cytokines for 7 days. After 7 days, CD14+ monocytes not only differentiated into high purity DC but also expressed HLA-I and HLA-II molecules, costimulating molecules, adherent molecules and its progenitor marker CD14 molecule highly. These cells displayed all phenotypic and morphologic characteristics of mature dendritic cells and were most potent stimulatory cells in allogeneic mixed leukocyte reactions. The endocytosis ability of these DCs peaked at the third day in culture and decreased remarkably afterwards. These results provide evidence for the first time that CD14+ monocytes differentiated in vitro from peripheral blood monocytes exhibit dendritic cells characteristics and still express its progenitor marker CD14 molecules highly. The results of this experiments may facilitate further studies of CD14+ DC and its clinical applications.