Oral administration of inactivated porcine epidemic diarrhea virus activate DCs in porcine Peyer’s patches

Yuan, Chen; Zhang, En; Huang, Lulu; Wang, Jialu; Yang, Qian

Gut is the major immune organ of the body and the intestinal mucosa is thought to be the primary site for performing local-specific immune responses. Gut associated lymphoid tissue (GALT), consists of isolated or aggregated lymphoid follicles forming Peyer's patches (PPs), is considered to be the key inductive tissues for the mucosal immune system [1] . PPs are known as the immune sensors of the intestine because of their ability to transport luminal antigens and bacteria into organized lymphoid tissues within the intestinal mucosa [2] . PPs contain too many immunocompetent cells that are required for the generation of an immune response. Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells (APC) that possess the unique capacity to trigger primary adaptive immune responses through the antigen-specific activation of naive T cells. DCs in PPs can extend dendrites into the lumen to capture antigens and then present to resting T cells and thus initiate adaptive immune responses [3, 4] .