Quantification of antigen-reactive T cells by a modified ELISPOT assay based on freshly isolated blood dendritic cells

The enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay has become a widely employed method for quantification of antigen-reactive T lymphocytes. In recent years, various types of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) have been tested as stimulator cells in ELISPOT protocols to achieve a highly sensitive and rapid assay which is not impaired by a marked nonspecific cytokine release. However, the currently available APCs still have disadvantages, such as significant background reactivities, limited sensitivity, and time-consuming preparation procedures. Recently, we succeeded in defining a novel subpopulation of circulating dendritic cells (DCs) that can easily be prepared from human blood. These M-DC8+ DCs proved to be very effective in the induction of antigen-specific T cell responses. In the present study we provide evidence that M-DC8+ DCs are particularly well suited as APCs for the detection of antigen-specific CD8+ T cells after challenge with viral or tumor peptides in ELISPOT assays. In addition, protein-loaded M-DC8+ DCs proved to be quite efficient in the presentation of MHC class II-bound peptides, thus allowing the determination of frequencies of antigen-reactive CD4+ T cells. The use of M-DC8+ DCs as stimulator cells can improve the ELISPOT assay by combining high sensitivity, rapidity, and low background reactivity. (C) 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.