As both neutrophils and monocytes buy PD98059 are versatile innate immune cells, DC functions may be either over- or underestimated in CD11c.DTR and CD11c.DOG mice, depending on the experimental setup. In this light, it is essential to determine whether other inducible DC-depletion models (e.g. zDC.DTR, Langerin.DTR, BDCA2.DTR, SiglecH.DTR, Clec9a.DTR, and CD205.DTR mice) also exhibit neutrophilia and monocytosis upon DT injection. Of note, zDC.DTR mice have been reported to possess increased neutrophil counts in the spleen upon DT treatment [12]. Our understanding of DC biology would greatly benefit from a mouse model that combines specific

depletion of DCs without the induction of neutrophilia and monocytosis. Work at the London Research Institute

is funded by Cancer Research UK. C.R.S. acknowledges additional support in the form of a prize from Fondation Bettencourt-Schueller and a grant from the European Research Council. J. v B. is supported by the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds. B.U.S. was supported by an EMBO long-term Fellowship. The authors declare no financial or commercial conflict of interest. small molecule library screening “
“Subunit vaccines have the potential advantage to boost Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-primed immunity in adults. However, most candidates are antigens highly expressed in replicating bacilli but not in dormant or persisting bacilli, which exist during Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. We constructed M. tuberculosis fusion protein Ag85B-Mpt64190–198-HspX (AMH) and Ag85B-Mpt64190–198-Mtb8.4 (AMM), which consist

of Ag85B, the Adenosine triphosphate 190–198 peptide of Mpt64, HspX (Rv2031c) and Mtb8.4 (Rv1174c), respectively. AMH and/or AMM were mixed with adjuvants composed of dimethyl-dioctyldecyl ammonium bromide and BCG polysaccharide nucleic acid (DDA-BCG PSN) to construct subunit vaccines. Mice were immunized thrice with Ag85B, AMH and AMM vaccines and the immunogenicity of the fusion protein vaccines was determined. Then, mice were primed with BCG and boosted twice with Ag85B, AMH, AMM and AMM + AMH vaccines, respectively, followed by challenging with M. tuberculosis virulent strain H37Rv, and the immune responses and protective effects were measured. It was found that mice immunized with AMH vaccine generated high levels of antigen-specific cell-mediated responses. Compared with the group injected only with BCG, the mice boosted with AMM, AMH and AMM + AMH produced higher levels of Ag85B-specific IgG1 and IgG2a and IFN-γ-secreting T cells upon Ag85B and Mycobacterium tuberculosis purified protein derivative (PPD) stimulation. It is interesting that only mice boosted with AMM + AMH had significantly lower bacterial count in the lungs than those receiving BCG, whereas mice boosted with AMH or AMM did not.