Dendritic & Antigen Presenting Cell

Antigen presenting cells (APCs) ingest pathogens and digest their proteins into antigens. Pathogen engulfment activates professional APCs, causing the cells to migrate to lymph nodes where they encounter T cells. They display these antigens on their cell surface major histocompatibility complex (MHC) receptors. T cell receptor complexes recognize these antigen-MHC complexes and other necessary stimulatory macromolecules, inducing them to promote the appropriate immunological responses. Dendritic cells, one major class of professional APC, reside in tissues exposed to the external environment and represent the first line of defense against invading pathogenic organisms. Derived from hematopoietic progenitor cells, dendritic cells only differentiate and mature after contact with an antigen. Additional professional APC classes include macrophages and B cells, whereas fibroblasts and certain epithelial cell subtypes become non-professional APCs under the appropriate conditions. A full description of APC mechanism and function remains incomplete due to the difficulty of isolating the small percentage of APCs from other cell types. However, the known roles of dendritic cell dysregulation in allergy and autoimmune diseases make these cells an important target for research.

QIAGEN provides a broad range of assay technologies for dendritic and antigen presenting cell research that enable analysis of gene expression and regulation, epigenetic modification, genotyping, and signal transduction pathway activation. Solutions optimized for dendritic and antigen presenting cell studies include PCR array, miRNA, siRNA, mutation analysis, pathway reporter, chromatin IP, DNA methylation, and protein expression products.