Xue SA, Gao L, Ahmadi M, Ghorashian S, Barros RD, Pospori C, Holler A, Wright G, Thomas S, Topp M, Morris EC, Stauss HJ. Human MHC Class I-restricted high avidity CD4
+ T cells generated by co-transfer of TCR and CD8 mediate efficient tumor rejection in vivo.
Oncoimmunology 2014;
2:e22590. [PMID:
23483821 PMCID:
PMC3583927 DOI:
10.4161/onci.22590]
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Abstract
In this study, we generated human MHC Class I-restricted CD4+ T cells specific for Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV), two herpesviridae associated with lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and medulloblastoma, respectively. Retroviral transfer of virus-specific, HLA-A2-restricted TCR-coding genes generated CD4+ T cells that recognized HLA-A2/peptide multimers and produced cytokines when stimulated with MHC Class II-deficient cells presenting the relevant viral peptides in the context of HLA-A2. Peptide titration revealed that CD4+ T cells had a 10-fold lower avidity than CD8+ T cells expressing the same TCR. The impaired avidity of CD4+ T cells was corrected by simultaneously transferring TCR- and CD8-coding genes. The CD8 co-receptor did not alter the cytokine signature of CD4+ T cells, which remained distinct from that of CD8+ T cells. Using the xenogeneic NOD/SCID mouse model, we demonstrated that human CD4+ T cells expressing a specific TCR and CD8 can confer efficient protection against the growth of tumors expressing the EBV or CMV antigens recognized by the TCR. In summary, we describe a robust approach for generating therapeutic CD4+ T cells capable of providing MHC Class I-restricted immunity against MHC Class II-negative tumors in vivo.
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