In some experiments, 5 μg/mL of anti-type 1 IFN receptor antibody (mouse anti-human IFNa/βR chain 2, PBL Biomedical Laboratories, Piscataway, NJ, USA) was added 30 min prior to stimulation. Cell concentrations were kept below 106 cells/mL by passage every 2 days and individual cultures were maintained for less than 3 weeks. Mononuclear cell enriched human buffy coats were
obtained by leukopheresis (DTM, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA) using an IRB-approved protocol. Following Ficoll-Hypaque (Sigma, St. Louis, MO, USA) and Percoll gradient (Pharmacia, Uppsala, MG-132 price Sweden) centrifugation of the buffy coat, pDCs were MACS sorted using a BDCA-2 purification kit as per manufacturer’s instructions (Miltenyi Biotec Inc., Auburn, CA, USA). The pDCs isolated by this procedure were 93–95% pure and their viability was >95%. A total of 5 × 105 freshly isolated pDC per well were cultured in
48-well plates in complete media and then stimulated with 1 μM “K” ODN for the times indicated. Immunoblot analysis was performed on whole CAL-1 cell lysates. Nuclear and cytoplasmic proteins were extracted using NE-PER Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Extraction Reagents (Thermo Scientific, Pierce, Rockford, IL, USA). A total of 10 μg of nuclear and 30 μg of cytoplasmic lysates were subjected to SDS-PAGE (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) and transferred to Immobilon-P membranes (Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA). The membranes were then probed for IRF-3 (D83B9), IRF-7 (#4920), NF-κB p105/p50 (#3035), NF-κB p65 (C22B4), α-tubulin (11H10), β-actin (13E5) (Cell Signaling, Beverly, MA, USA), IRF-1 (B-1), selleck kinase inhibitor IRF-8 (C-19) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA, USA), or IRF-5 (10T1) (Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA). Additional antibodies used to validate siRNA knockdown efficiencies and in immunoblot analysis of
immunoprecipitation preparations included MyD88 (E-11), TRAF6 (D-10), and HA-probe (Y-11) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology). Densitometric Y-27632 2HCl analysis was performed using Syngene GeneTools v4.0. The specificity of these antibodies was established in siRNA knockdown studies (Fig. 3A and C and 4A, and Supporting Information Fig. 2). CAL-1 cells were transfected at a density of 1.5 × 106 cells/well with 1 nM of siRNA or 500 ng of human HA-MyD88 plasmid (gift from Dr. Bruce Beutler, Addgene plasmid 12287) using an optimized Amaxa 96-well shuttle nucleofector system (DN100, cell line SF, Lonza). siRNA to MyD88, TRAF6, NF-κB1 (p105/p50), RelA (p65), IRF-1, IRF-5 (Silencer Select, Ambion), IRF-3, IRF-7, or IRF-8 (Invitrogen stealth RNAi) was used. Silencer Select Negative Control #1 siRNA (Ambion) was used as a negative control. Cells transfected with siRNA were recovered in complete media supplemented with 10% FBS for 4 h and then serum starved for 16 h in 0.1% FBS complete RPMI media prior to knockdown efficiency analysis or stimulation. Cells transfected with the HA-MyD88 plasmid were rested for 16 h in 50% cell-conditioned media with 50% fresh RPMI media containing 10% FBS.