Background: The mucosal immune system undergoes extensive changes in early childhood in response to environmental stimuli. Dendritic cells (DC) play a major role in the development of the immune system. However, few data exist on the influence of continuous environmental stimulation on the distribution and phenotype of human airway DC.
Methods: Human tissue samples are mostly paraffin embedded which limits the use of several antibodies, and respiratory tissue for cryopreservation is difficult to obtain. Human frozen post mortem tracheal tissue was therefore used for this study. Only samples with epithelial adherence to the basement membrane were included (n = 34). Immunohistochemical staining and sequential overlay immunofluorescence were performed with DC-SIGN and a panel of leucocyte markers co-expressed by DC.
Results: DC detected in the human tracheal mucosa using DC-SIGN correlated with the expression of HLA-DR, co-stimulatory and adhesion molecules. Higher cell densities were found at the ventral tracheal site of patients older than 1 year than in infants in the first year of life.
Conclusion: The increasing population of mucosal DC with age could reflect immunological maturation.