Chemotherapeutic agents targeting the tubulin cytoskeleton modify LPS-induced cytokine secretion by dendritic cells and increase antigen presentation.

Recent studies support the idea that certain chemotherapeutic agents do not act only by cytotoxicity, but also have immunomodulatory activity. Because of their role in mitosis chemotherapeutic agents targeting microtubules are widely used, and this study determined the outcome of disturbing tubulin cytoskeleton dynamics on human dendritic cell function. Dendritic cells (DCs) play a major role in the generation of the adaptive immune response owing to their capacity for antigen presentation leading to T lymphocyte activation and differentiation and there is compelling evidence for their contribution to the antitumoral immune response. Two agents that target the tubulin cytoskeleton were used, taxol and colchicine, and a brief pretreatment with either increased antigen presentation by DCs independently of significant phenotypic change, cell death, or cytokine production. Although taxol and colchicine use different mechanisms to disrupt microtubules, NF-kappabeta was activated by either. We therefore determined whether the cytokine secretion profile in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was modified. LPS stimulation of DCs induced IL-10, IL-12p70, TNFalpha and IL-1beta secretion, and taxol pretreatment modified this response by down-regulating IL-1beta secretion whereas colchicine induced a proinflammatory cytokine profile with reduced IL-10 and increased IL-12p70 and TNFalpha secretion. Taken together, these data reveal new immunomodulatory strategies of microtubule disrupting agents in dendritic cells, that of modifying the cytokine response to LPS and that of increasing T lymphocyte activation without induction of inflammatory cytokine secretion by dendritic cells.