Human MDDCs were obtained from healthy human blood donors (New York Blood Center), following a standard protocol as previously described [24] and described above. Briefly, after Ficoll-Hypaque gradient centrifugation, CD14+ cells were isolated from the mononuclear fraction using a MACS CD14 isolation kit (Milteny Biotec) according to the manufacturer's directions. CD14+ cells were then differentiated to naïve DCs by incubation during 5 to 6 days in DC medium (RPMI supplemented with 100 U/ml L-glutamine, 100 g/ml penicillin-streptomycin, and 1 mM sodium pyruvate) with the presence of 500 U/ml human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulated factor (GM-CSF) (Pe-proTech), 1,000 U/ml human interleukin 4 (IL-4) (PeproTech), and 10% FBS (Hyclone). To generate MDMs, monocytes were cultured in the presence of 2000 U/ml human granulocytemacrophage colony-stimulated factor (GM-CSF) for 10 days, and media was replenished (with same concentration of GMCSF) at days 2, 5 and 8. The purity of each cell population was confirmed by flow cytometry analysis and was at least 99% for MDDCs and 95% for MDMs.