The Importance of CD11b ⁺ Dendritic Cells in CD4⁺ T Cell Activation In Vivo : With Help from Interleukin 1

A murine model of cutaneous leishmaniasis, using needle inoculation of Leishmania major, represents perhaps the most widely used system to study the contrasting effects of Th1 versus Th2 immunity in disease control. One of the intriguing aspects of this disease model is that certain strains of mice, such as BALB/c and SWR/J, fail to control infection leading to progressive lesion development and systemic infection, whereas the majority of other mouse strains control infection at the local site of inoculation. Most humans infected with L. major manifest with self-healing lesions limited to the skin. Thus, the susceptible strains of mice represent an abnormal situation seen in rare patients who succumb to systemic infection with the cutaneous Leishmania species. The susceptibility of BALB/c mice to L. major is a multigenic phenomenon (1) in which both the T cell and the non-T cell compartments are impaired...