Adherent cells in granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor-induced bone marrow-derived dendritic cell culture system are qualified dendritic cells

A widely-used method for generating dendritic cell (DC) is to culture bone marrow cells in granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-containing medium for 6–10 days. Usually, non-adherent cells are used as qualified dendritic cells while the adherent ones are discarded as “non-dendritic cells” or macrophages. In this study, we show that the adherent cells are nearly identical to the non-adherent cells in both dendritic cell surface markers expression and main dendritic cell-related functions, hence to prove that these “junk cells” are actually qualified dendritic cells.