Systems Biology Analysis of Dendritic Cell Responses to Biomaterials

摘要

The strong correlation between the observations associated with PLGA-treated DC with that of iIgG or TNF-α, suggest an interesting hypothesis towards explaining the maturation effect of this biomaterial. Presumably DCs are influenced by interactions with IgG adsorbed to this biomaterial, either directly through FcR or via complement activation effects, resulting in autocrine maturation factor, TNF-α, release. Agarose treatment of DCs is correlated with FN treatment of DCs, a protein previously shown to not cause DC maturation. The understanding the interactions of DCs with biomaterials at the receptor level will inform which receptors should be engaged by ligands engineered into biomaterials to induce specific DC responses. In this way, the phenotype of DCs can be specifically engineered to modulate the resultant immune response to an associated antigen for either immunity or tolerance.