Diana Dudziak (Phd)

Name:

Diana Dudziak (PhD)

Address:

University Hospital of Erlangen

Research Campus Hartmannstrasse

Department of Dermatology

Laboratory of DC-Biology

Hartmannstr. 14

91052 Erlangen

Tel.:+49 9131 85 39346

Fax: +49 9131 85 39347

E-mail:

Web link:

Interests:

DC subpopulations (mouse, human); antigen targeting; antigen processing; antigen presentation; T cell tolerance; immunity, inflammation (TLR-ligands); immune regulation; tumor

Techniques:

Molecular Biology, Microarrays, 18 color flow cytometry, 6 color confocal immunofluorescence analysis, antigen targeting

Model systems available:

Transgenic/knock-in mice: OT-I, OT-II, OT-II-GFP, DO11.10, GFP, CFP, CD11c-YFP, CD11c-DTR, BRAF/PTEN, Trisomy: DP10, DP16, Dp17

K.O. mice: TLR (3,4,5,9), MyD88, TRIF, b2m, Tap1, t-bet, CCR2, CCR7, diverse FcγRs, BATF3, Cathepsin S, CD14, Zbtb46, MMR, CD40, IFNaR, LMP2/LMP7/Mecl1, Rag-1, DCIR1

Title: Dendritic cells in mice and men

Dendritic cells (DCs) are important cells for the presentation of antigens. In dependence of the surroundings, DCs are capable of presentation of antigen in an immature or mature state. Therefore, immune responses are tightly regulated by the DCs, as T cells recognizing peptide MHC-complexes on immature DCs undergo deletion or anergic responses whereas T cells recognizing pMHC complexes on mature DCs undergo proliferative responses leading to T cell memory. Our lab is focusing on understanding how DC subpopulations regulate these T cell responses. By antigen targeting using recombinant antigen-conjugated antibodies directed against endocytosis receptors specifically expressed on DC subpopulations we could show that antigen-loaded CD11c+CD8- DCs induce a pronounced CD4 helper T cell response whereas antigen loaded CD11c+CD8+ induce a prominent CD8 T cell response in C57BL/6 mice. We further found that CD11c+CD8- splenic DCs express higher levels of molecules important for antigen processing to MHC-II whereas CD11c+CD8+ DCs express higher levels of molecules important for antigen processing to MHC-I, thus demonstrating a specialization of the different DC subpopulations in the induction of immune responses in the steady state(Dudziak et al., Science, 2007).

Currently, we are investigating 1. whether the induced immune responses are suitable for the rejection of tumor cells (Neubert et al., 2014); 2. what is happening with the induction of immune responses if a variety of antigen presenting cells are targeted with antigens (Lehmann et al. in revision); 3. how the antigen presenting abilities are changing in the different DC subpopulations after immune stimulation (Yamazaki et al., 2008; Baranska et al., under review), and 4. how to translate our knowledge from the murine into the human system (Heidkamp et al., 2010; Eissing et al., 2014; Heidkamp et al., in revision; Heger et al., in preparation)? With gaining knowledge about functions of DC subpopulations in mouse and man and how to direct immune responses in either tolerogenic or immunogenic directions it might be possible to develop new immunotherapeutic options in the fight against cancer and autoimmunity.