One successful approach to generate dendritic cells (DC) is to cultivate peripheral blood monocytes in fetal calf serum (FCS)-containing medium in the presence of granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and interleukin (IL)-4. Because the use of xenogenic proteins has to be strictly avoided for clinical applications, alternative protocols use human plasma instead of FCS. The aim of our study was to characterize DC generated in the presence of human plasma; moreover, we describe a novel protocol to generate DC directly from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). DC generated from purified monocytes in the presence of 1% human plasma (HP-DC) and GM-CSF and IL-4 both in the allogenic mixed leukocyte reaction (MLR) and in the tetanus presentation assay were potent stimulators of T-cell proliferation. DC generated from PBMC were equally effective stimulators in the allogenic MLR as those generated from purified monocytes. When the immunophenotype of DC generated from FCS containing medium (FCS-DC) was compared to that of HP-DC, the surface expression of CD1a and CD80 was significantly lower in HP-DC. In contrast, the expression of CD83 and CD86 was significantly higher in HP-DC than in FCS-DC. The capacity of receptor mediated endocytosis and macropinocytosis was found to be significantly lower in HP-DC when compared to FCS-DC. The differences in the immunophenotype, macropinocytosis and endocytosis between the HP-DC and the FCS-DC were observed independently of the generation of the cells from PBMC or purified monocytes. Our data indicate that HP-DC are potent stimulators of T-cell proliferation and exhibit a characteristic phenotype of intermediate maturity. Moreover, DC can be directly generated from PBMC preparations.