Studies of serum-free culture medium in the generation of lymphokine activated killer cells.
Lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells administered in conjunction with recombinant interleukin-2 can mediate the regression of metastatic tumor in some patients with advanced cancer. In these trials LAK cells were activated in medium containing 2% human type A or AB serum. We have found three commercially available, serum-free culture media which allow development of in vitro LAK activity by human peripheral blood lymphocytes. They are AIMV (Gibco), MASF-3 (Whitaker-MA Bioproducts) and HB-104 (Dupont). If 2-mercaptoethanol was added to these culture media they were also capable of generating murine LAK cells which were effective in reducing pulmonary metastases in the murine MCA-106 model. Although LAK cells generated in these media have not been tested in humans yet, potentially they could provide a safe, unlimited and less expensive source of culture fluid for generating the large numbers of LAK cells needed for human clinical trials.
Surgery Branch, NCI, Bethesda, MD 20892.
L M
LM
Muul
K
K
Nason-Burchenal
C
C
Hyatt
S
S
Schwarz
D
D
Slavin
E P
EP
Director
S A
SA
Rosenberg
D000818:Animals; D001769:Blood; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003470:Culture Media; D003602:Cytotoxicity, Immunologic; D006801:Humans; D007111:Immunity, Cellular; D007116:Immunization, Passive; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology; D008222:Lymphokines / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D009374:Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000628:therapy
D003470:Culture Media; D008222:Lymphokines