title: High-throughput monitoring of human tumor-specific T-cell responses with large peptide pools.
abstract: In immune intervention trials, the comprehensive investigation of immunogenicity or T-cell epitope-mapping is challenging especially when a large set of epitopes needs to be screened and limited sample material is available. To this end, T-cell responses are often monitored using peptide pools. Here, we assessed the magnitude and sensitivity of detection of antigen-specific CD8+and CD4+T cells using a single peptide alone or mixed into large pools. Interestingly the magnitude ofex vivoanti-viral and anti-tumor T-cell responses was identical irrespective of the presence and number of irrelevant peptides, in different functional assays with PBMCs from healthy donors and cancer patients. Moreover, the presence of up to 300 irrelevant peptides did not affect the threshold of responsiveness of antigen-specific CD8+T cells to single cognate peptides. These data demonstrate the relevance of using very large peptide pools for the sensitive and specific immune-monitoring of epitope-specific T cells in natural or immune-modulated context.
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Unit; Department of Urology; University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) ; Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Mathieu F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Chevalier
authors.affiliation: Center of Experimental Therapeutics; Department of Oncology; University Hospital of Lausanne ; Lausanne, Switzerland ; Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at University of Lausanne ; Epalinges, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bobisse
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at University of Lausanne ; Epalinges, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Carla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Costa-Nunes
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Unit; Department of Urology; University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) ; Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Valérie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Cesson
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Unit; Department of Urology; University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) ; Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Patrice
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jichlinski
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at University of Lausanne ; Epalinges, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Daniel E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Speiser
authors.affiliation: Center of Experimental Therapeutics; Department of Oncology; University Hospital of Lausanne ; Lausanne, Switzerland ; Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at University of Lausanne ; Epalinges, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Harari
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at University of Lausanne ; Epalinges, Switzerland ; Ovarian Cancer Research Center; Perelman School of Medicine; University of Pennsylvania ; Philadelphia, PA USA ; Department of Oncology; University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) ; Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Coukos
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at University of Lausanne ; Epalinges, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Unit; Department of Urology; University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) ; Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Nardelli-Haefliger
authors.affiliation: Ludwig Center for Cancer Research at University of Lausanne ; Epalinges, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Camilla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jandus
authors.affiliation: Urology Research Unit; Department of Urology; University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) ; Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Derré
keywords: immune monitoring; peptide pools; tumor-associated antigens; tumor-specific T cells; vaccine trials