Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Nov;52(11):1759-1767.
doi: 10.1002/eji.202149632. Epub 2022 Mar 11.

Human dendritic cell subsets: An updated view of their ontogeny and functional specialization

Elodie Segura  1
Affiliations
Review

Human dendritic cell subsets: An updated view of their ontogeny and functional specialization

Elodie Segura. Eur J Immunol. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Human DCs have been divided into several subsets based on their phenotype and ontogeny. Recent high throughput single-cell methods have revealed additional heterogeneity within human DC subsets, and new subpopulations have been proposed. In this review, we provide an updated view of the human DC subsets and of their ontogeny supported by recent clinical studies . We also summarize their main characteristics including their functional specialization.

Keywords: Human; dendritic cell; subsets.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no commercial or financial conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Ontogeny of human DC subsets. DC precursors originate from the bone marrow. pDC, cDC1, cDC2, and DC3 develop from precursors distinct from the other DC lineages. moDC are differentiated from monocytes in peripheral tissues. The developmental pathway of tDC remains to be better characterized. Cell differentiation is indicated in black and cell migration in blue. Questions marks indicate aspects that remain unclear. CDP, common DC progenitor; cMoP, common monocyte precursor; GMDP, granulocyte‐monocyte and DC progenitor, mono, monocyte; moDC, monocyte‐derived DC; tDC, transitional AXL+ SIGLEC6+ DC.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dzionek, A. , Fuchs, A. , Schmidt, P. , Cremer, S. , Zysk, M. , Miltenyi, S. , Buck, D. W. et al., BDCA‐2, BDCA‐3, and BDCA‐4: three markers for distinct subsets of dendritic cells in human peripheral blood. J. Immunol. 2000. 165: 6037–6046. - PubMed
    1. Robbins, S. H. , Walzer, T. , Dembélé, D. , Thibault, C. , Defays, A. , Bessou, G. , Xu, H. et al., Novel insights into the relationships between dendritic cell subsets in human and mouse revealed by genome‐wide expression profiling. Genome Biol. 2008. 9: R17. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Villar, J. and Segura, E. , Decoding the heterogeneity of human dendritic cell subsets. Trends Immunol. 2020. 41: 1062–1071. - PubMed
    1. Guilliams, M. , Ginhoux, F. , Jakubzick, C. , Naik, S. H. , Onai, N. , Schraml, B. U. , Segura, E. et al., Dendritic cells, monocytes and macrophages: a unified nomenclature based on ontogeny. Nat. Rev. Immunol. 2014. 14: 571–578. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Heidkamp, G. F. , Sander, J. , Lehmann, C. H. K. , Heger, L. , Eissing, N. , Baranska, A. , Lühr, J. J. et al., Human lymphoid organ dendritic cell identity is predominantly dictated by ontogeny, not tissue microenvironment. Sci Immunol. 2016. 1. - PubMed

Publication types