Dendritic cells (DCs) are antigen-presenting cells that elicit specific T-cell responses, which offers great promise for anti-tumor therapy. To realize the therapeutic potential, directing DC cells to desired immune-responses is critical. This presentation reports a new means to regulate the DC signaling process, i.e., <i>via</i> using nanotechnology. Using a commonly known stimuli for DC, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), the responses, e.g., activation and maturation, can be monitored by measuring the release of cytokines such as TNF-α and IL-6, as well as by visualizing cellular morphology. DCs, upon maturation, evolve from hat shape to dendritic morphology. Five arrays of LPS nanodots were produced, with height of 9.1 nm and diameter of 240 nm. The periodicity of the five arrays ranged from 200, 300, 500, 700, to 1000 nm. Upon interactions with bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) from C57BL/6 mice, the cellular morphology was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). As shown in Figure 1, the morphology of mature BMDCs was observed among BMDCs after 1 h exposure to LPS presented by nanostructures, while elongated BMDCs with smooth membrane were observed after 1 h activation by LPS in solution. These observations indicate that LPS nanostructures promote rapid maturation of BMDCs, and that DC activation depends sensitively on the local arrangement of the ligands, which can be designed and produced using nanotechnology. Parallel cytokine assays confirm this conclusion. This presentation also discusses possible mechanisms for the highly effective stimulation of cells by nanostructures of ligands.

Engineered nanostructures of lipopolysaccharide triggers rapid morphogenesis among dendritic cells

251st National Meeting (2016)

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