Interleukin-10–Treated Human Dendritic Cells Induce a Melanoma-Antigen–Specific Anergy in CD8+ T Cells Resulting in a Failure to Lyse Tumor Cells

Abstract

Abstract Dendritic cells (DC) are critically involved in the initiation of primary immune processes, including tumor rejection. In our study, we investigated the effect of interleukin-10 (IL-10)–treated human DC on the properties of CD8+ T cells that are known to be essential for the destruction of tumor cells. We show that IL-10–pretreatment of DC not only reduces their allostimulatory capacity, but also induces a state of alloantigen-specific anergy in both primed and naive (CD45RA+) CD8+ T cells. To investigate the influence of IL-10–treated DC on melanoma-associated antigen-specific T cells, we generated a tyrosinase-specific CD8+ T-cell line by several rounds of stimulation with the specific antigen. After coculture with IL-10–treated DC, restimulation of the T-cell line with untreated, antigen-pulsed DC demonstrated peptide-specific anergy in the tyrosinase-specific T cells. Addition of IL-2 to the anergic T cells reversed the state of both alloantigen- or peptide-specific anergy. In contrast to optimally stimulated CD8+ T cells, anergic tyrosinase-specific CD8+ T cells, after coculture with peptide-pulsed IL-10–treated DC, failed to lyse an HLA-A2–positive and tyrosinase-expressing melanoma cell line. Thus, our data demonstrate that IL-10–treated DC induce an antigen-specific anergy in cytotoxic CD8+ T cells, a process that might be a mechanism of tumors to inhibit immune surveillance by converting DC into tolerogenic antigen-presenting cells.