To check if IFN-β present on PIC-tumor CM was responsible for the effect observed, a neutralizing anti-IFN-β was added to the different CM 1 h before Selleck DMXAA incubating them with MoDCs. As shown in Figure 3C, neutralizing IFN-β completely abrogated the increment

in the expression levels of CD40 and CD86 observed when MoDCs were incubated with PIC-A549 CM and PIC-A549 CM + LPS. Next, we analyzed the ability of A549-CM and PIC-A549 CM to modulate IL-12 secretion. It is generally accepted that DCs need to be stimulated simultaneously with a combination of TLR ligands in the presence of endogenous levels of type I IFN in order to produce biologically active levels of IL-12p70 [26]. In accordance with this idea, neither poly I:C nor LPS stimulation of MoDCs induced high levels of IL-12. Whereas PIC-A549 and PIC-DU CMs were capable per se of increasing CD86 and CD40 levels, they did not induce IL-12 production by MoDCs. In contrast, when MoDCs were stimulated with LPS or R848 in the presence of PIC-CM, a strong increase in IL-12 levels was measured (Fig. 4A and B and Supporting Information Fig. 2C), indicating that IFN-β present in the CM could be acting synergistically with a TLR ligand to induce this crucial cytokine. We

then tested the capacity of MoDC matured in the presence of PIC-A549 CM to stimulate allogeneic PBMCs to produce IFN-γ secretion (Fig. 3C and D). MoDCs were matured with a TLR ligand (LPS or R848) in the presence of A549-CM or PIC-A549 CM. As expected, when MoDCs were matured by only one TLR ligand, either LPS or R848, they were capable selleck inhibitor of inducing the production of IFN-γ in allogeneic culture supernatants (∼1000 and 4000

pg/mL, respectively) (Fig. 4C and D). Interestingly, when MoDCs were exposed to the TLR ligand in the presence of A549-CM (or DU-CM, data not shown), levels of IFN-γ produced in the allogeneic cultures significantly drop. Interestingly, IFN-γ levels are restored or are even higher when the PBMCs were cocultured with MoDCs that were Lck matured in the presence of PIC-A549 CM simultaneously with a TLR ligand (Fig. 4C and D). Similar results were obtained when we evaluated the proliferation of allogeneic PBMC cocultured with MoDC activated under the different experimental conditions (Supporting Information Fig. 3). This increase in IFN-γ production is abrogated when a neutralizing anti-IFN-β was added to the culture (Fig. 4E). These results indicate that dsRNA analogs can act on human cancer cells and induce the production of type I IFNs, which in turn can promote an improvement in DC function. To see if IFN-β produced by dsRNA-activated cancer cells could influence tumor growth, we stimulated murine melanoma B16 cells with poly A:U complexed to polyethylenimine (PEI) for 24 h (PAU-B16). We chose poly A:U because it has been previously reported that it only signals through TLR3 [27].