The role of tumor necrosis factor-α for interleukin-10 production by murine dendritic cells

In the present study, we examined the role of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in interleukin (IL)-10 production by dendritic cells (DCs) using bone-marrow derived DCs from wild type (WT) and TNF-α knockout (TNF-α−/−) mice. Toll-like receptor (TLR) stimulation induced substantial level of IL-10 production by WT DCs, but significantly low level of IL-10 production by TNF-α−/− DCs. In contrast, no significant difference was detected in IL-12 p40 production between WT and TNF-α−/− DCs. Addition of TNF-α during TLR stimulation recovered the impaired ability of TNF-α−/− DCs for IL-10 production. This recovery appeared to be associated with an activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt following the TNF-α addition. Blocking these kinases significantly inhibited IL-10 production by TNF-α−/− DCs stimulated with TLR ligands plus TNF-α. Thus, TNF-α may be a key molecule to regulate the balance between anti-inflammatory versus inflammatory cytokine production in DCs.