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Review
. 2013 Sep;5(9):505-14.
doi: 10.4103/1947-2714.118923.

Langerhans cells and their role in oral mucosal diseases

Juhi Upadhyay  1 , Ram B Upadhyay, Pankaj Agrawal, Shweta Jaitley, Rhitu Shekhar
Affiliations
Review

Langerhans cells and their role in oral mucosal diseases

Juhi Upadhyay et al. N Am J Med Sci. 2013 Sep.

Abstract

Dendritic cells are arguably the most potent antigen-presenting cells and may be the only cells capable of initiating the adaptive immune response. The epithelial residents of dendritic cells are Langerhans cells, which serve as the "sentinels" of the mucosa, altering the immune system not only to pathogen entry but also of tolerance to self antigen and commensal microbes. Oral mucosal Langerhans cells are capable of engaging and internalizing a wide variety of pathogens and have been found responsive to nickel in patients with nickel allergies, oral Candida species, oral lichen planus, lichenoid drug eruptions, graft versus host diseases, periodontal diseases median rhomboid glossitis, human immunodeficiency virus infection, hairy leukoplakia of the tongue, and oral squamous cell carcinoma. Review focuses on the role of antigen-presenting cells in particular Langerhans cells to better understand the mechanisms underlying immune responses. In this review, comprehensive detail about mucosal diseases has been compiled using the PubMed database and through textbooks.

Keywords: Antigen-presenting cells; Dendritic cells; Langerhans cells; Oral mucosal diseases.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Showing CD1a positive Langerhans cells with dendritic processes within the oral mucosa (a) At 40× (b) At 100× magnification
Figure 2
Figure 2
Origin of Langerhans cells from the bone marrow precursor cells
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic representation of LCs migration from the oral mucosa to the regional lymph node. The right side of the scheme shows the functional properties of mature and immature LCs
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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