Dendritic cells are the initiators of the adaptive immune response, therefore its gene expression allow us to predict the responses to vaccination. We used bone marrow derived dendritic cells (BMDC) to analyze the gene expression that result from the exposure to adjuvants. We use model antigen OVA and cyclic di-AMP (CDA) as an adjuvant in order to characterize the genes involved in the activation of dendritic cells by CDA alone or when the antigen is present. Cyclic di-nucleotides (CDN) are potent stimulators of innate and adaptive immune responses. Cyclic di-AMP (CDA) is a promising adjuvant that generates humoral and cellular immunity. The strong STING-dependent stimulation of type I IFN represents a key feature of CDA. However, recent studies suggested that this is dispensable for adjuvanticity. Here we demonstrate that stimulation of IFN-γ-secreting CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) is significantly decreased after vaccination in the absence of type I IFN signaling. The biological significance of this CTL response was confirmed by the stimulation of MHC class I-restricted protection against influenza virus challenge. We show here that type I IFN (and not TNF-α) is essential for CDA-mediated cross-presentation by a cathepsin independent, TAP and proteosome dependent cytosolic antigen processing pathway, which promotes effective cross-priming and further CTL induction. Our data clearly demonstrate that type I IFN signaling is critical for CDN-mediated cross-presentation
Overall design
Cuadruplicates/Triplicates of different time points indicated below.