Kinetics of dendritic cell activation:: impact on priming of TH1, TH2 and nonpolarized T cells

To prime immune responses, dendritic cells (DCs) need to be activated to acquire T cell stimulatory capacity. Although some stimuli trigger interleukin 12 (IL-12) production that leads to T helper cell type 1 (T(H)1) polarization, others fail to do so and favor T(H)2 polarization,We show that after activation by lipopolysaccharide, DCs produced IL-12 only transiently and became refractory to further stimulation,The exhaustion of cytokine production impacted the T cell polarizing process. Soon after stimulation DCs primed strong T(H)1 responses, whereas at later time points the same cells preferentially primed T(H)2 and nonpolarized T cells. These findings indicate that during an immune response, T cell priming conditions may change in the lymph nodes, suggesting another mechanism for the regulation of effector and memory T cells.