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Re(de)fining the dendritic cell lineage

An Erratum to this article was published on 19 March 2013

This article has been updated

Abstract

Dendritic cells (DCs) are essential mediators of innate and adaptive immune responses. Study of these critical cells has been complicated by their similarity to other hematopoietic lineages, particularly monocytes and macrophages. Progress has been made in three critical areas of DC biology: the characterization of lineage-restricted progenitors in the bone marrow, the identification of cytokines and transcription factors required during differentiation, and the development of genetic tools for the visualization and depletion of DCs in vivo. Collectively, these advances have clarified the nature of the DC lineage and have provided novel insights into their function during health and disease.

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Figure 1: The development and migration of mononuclear phagocyte lineages in the steady state.
Figure 2: Global relationships between DC and macrophage subsets.
Figure 3: Distinguishing myeloid populations with lineage-specific transcription factors.
Figure 4: Stage-specific expression of transcription factors that control the development and specialization of DCs.

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Change history

  • 29 November 2012

    In the version of this article initially published, the label 'TH2 cell' in Figure 4b was incorrectly positioned below 'TH1 cell'. It should be directly beneath the label 'TFH cell' (in the row with the cDC). The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Immunological Genome Project Consortium for use of their database110, and the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University in St. Louis for use of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Multiplex Gene Analysis Genechip Core Facility. Supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the US National Institutes of Health (AI076427-02 to K.M.M.), the US Department of Defense (W81XWH-09-1-0185 to K.M.M.), the American Heart Association (12PRE8610005 to A.T.S.), the German Research Foundation (AL 1038/1-1 to J.C.A.) and the National Cancer Institute (P30 CA91842 for the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center).

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Satpathy, A., Wu, X., Albring, J. et al. Re(de)fining the dendritic cell lineage. Nat Immunol 13, 1145–1154 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.2467

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