RelB suppresses type I Interferon signaling in dendritic cells

Type I Interferon (IFN) signaling plays a critical role in dendritic cell (DC) development and functions. Inhibition of hyper type I IFN signaling promotes cDC2 subtype development. Relb is essential to development of cDC2 subtype and here we analyzed its effect on type I IFN signaling in DCs. We show that Relb suppresses the homeostatic type I IFN signaling in cDC2 cultures. TLR stimulation of FL-DCs led to RelB induction coinciding with fall in IFN signatures; conforming with the observation Relb expression reduced TLR stimulated IFN induction along with decrease in ISGs. Towards understanding mechanism, we show that effects of RelB are mediated by increased levels of I kappa B alpha. We demonstrate that RelB dampened antiviral responses by lowering ISG levels and the defect in cDC2 development in RelB null mice can be rescued in Ifnar1(-/-) background. Overall, we propose a novel role of RelB as a negative regulator of the type I IFN signaling pathway; fine tuning development of cDC2 subtype.