By essence, dendritic cells (DC) are programmed for apoptosis and have only a limited life. They cannot be produced by primary culture. The standard procedure is to obtain them from blood monocytes by differentiation with cytokines. Most DCs obtained from monocytes are of myeloid type.
BruCells is currently using a proprietary cell line developed by one of its partners as precursor of dendritic cells.
These cells were identified during investigations regarding CD4+ CD56+ leukemia tumor cells. When these tumor cells are cultured in the presence of IL3, they undergo a very clear maturation, with a substantial increase in the expression of the co-stimulatory molecules CD40, CD80 and CD86 and also the appearance of CD1a, CD1c and CD83. This maturation is accompanied by the acquisition of the ability to activate naïve T lymphocytes. They represent a source of cells that have the same characteristics as normal plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs).
The in vitro and animal model tests show a strong anti-tumor therapeutic efficacy in melanoma and suggest that the pDCs obtained from this line could be more potent than myeloid DCs obtained from monocytes. The DCs obtained from the cell line are HLA-A2 positive.
The cell line is very stable and can be cultured in approved medium without the use of serum.