In their article in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology Perspective, Huan Liu and colleagues argue that novel dendritic cell (DC) reagents and genetically modified animal models allow the role of DCs in immune-related lung diseases to be explored in unprecedented detail.

These advances coupled with advances in the study of rare lung diseases, including, pulmonary Langerhans cell histiocytosis, sarcoidosis, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and pulmonary fibrosis, the authors write, reveal expanding potential pathogenic roles for DCs.

The authors then review DC development, trafficking and effector functions in the lung and discuss how alterations in these DC pathways contribute to the pathogenesis of each of these rare lung diseases.