Flow Cytometric Challenges in Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell (pDC) Identification: Limitation of BDCA-4 (CD304)-Based Gating.

ABSTRACT: Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) are a unique subset of dendritic cells specialized in rapid and robust type I interferon (IFN) production, playing critical roles in the pathogenesis and pathomechanisms of many human diseases. Accurate identification of pDCs in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) is challenging due to dynamic and non-exclusive specific expression of surface markers such as blood dendritic cell antigen (BDCA)-2 and BDCA-4. Although BDCA-4 is generally more stably expressed than BDCA-2, prolonged stimulation or inflammatory conditions can induce its expression on multiple non-pDC cell types, reducing the accuracy of pDC identification. Here, we thoroughly investigated BDCA-4 expression dynamics on pDCs and other PBMC subsets following prolonged activation with Toll

SUBMITTER: Demeter S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12652205 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature