Carthamus tinctorius Enhances the Antitumor Activity of Dendritic Cell Vaccines via Polarization toward Th1 Cytokines and Increase of Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes

Figure 4

CT extract enhances the maturation of CD117⁺-derived DCs. CD117⁺ cells were isolated as described in Section 2 and then cultured in differentiation medium (GM-CSF and IL-4). After 6 days of differentiation, the differentiated cells (D6) were pulsed with JC tumor lysate (1.7 × 10⁶ per 0.2 mL PBS) in the absence of differentiation cytokines for additional 72 h (D9) or pulsed with JC tumor lysate and incubated with 20 μg/mL CT for additional 72 h (D9-CT). The CD117⁺-derived DCs were then collected and analyzed by flow cytometry for the expression of surface immunological molecules. Experiments were performed in triplicate, and the data are expressed as mean ± SE.