Dendritic cell depletion and repopulation in the lung after irradiation and bone marrow transplantation in mice

Macrophages and dendritic cells are essential for innate and adaptive immunity, respectively and have been reported to exhibit variable radiosensitivities in response to irradiation in various bone marrow transplantation (BMT) protocols. In order to address this controversy, we analyzed the magnitude of depletion and repopulation of both “conventional“ CD11bpos DC and CD103pos DC subsets as well as different pulmonary macrophage subsets in the lung tissue in response to irradiation and BMT in a mouse model. In our study, CD45.2pos donor bone marrow cells were transplanted into irradiated CD45.1pos recipient mice…