title: A method for the production of CD4+ chronic myelogenous leukemia-specific allogeneic T lymphocytes.
abstract: The graft-versus-leukemia effect is critical to the maintenance of remission in patients transplanted for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). A pivotal issue in transplantation for CML is whether donor lymphocytes are specific for host tumor or myeloid cells or a subset of the lymphocytes that cause graft-versus-host disease. We have enrolled seven patients in an experimental trial to evaluate the specificity of HLA-matched donor lymphocytes in vitro. We have produced 11 CD4+ cytotoxic and proliferative T-cell clones from five of the donors that only lyse or proliferate to leukemic myeloid cells. These T lymphocytes do not react with interleukin (IL)-2-stimulated blasts, natural killer-sensitive targets, donor neutrophils, or bcr-abl+ EBV-lymphoblastoid cell lines. We show that the addition of the cytokines IL-7 and IL-12 during the production of T-cell clones enhances the recovery of myeloid-specific clones in vitro. Five of the myeloid-specific clones that we produced maintained specificity over 12 weeks in culture. Adoption of this method should allow for the expansion and in vivo testing of CML-specific CD4+ T-cell clones in adoptive immunotherapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill 27599-7305, USA.
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Serody
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Brecher
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dent
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Bentley
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Frelinger
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Shea
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015496:CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D016219:Immunotherapy, Adoptive / Q000379:methods*; D015464:Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014181:Transplantation Immunology