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Targeted in-vitro-stimulation reveals highly proliferative multi-virus-specific human central memory T cells as candidates for prophylactic T cell therapy

  • Benjamin Faist
  • , Fabian Schlott
  • , Christian Stemberger
  • , Kevin M. Dennehy
  • , Angela Krackhardt
  • , Mareike Verbeek
  • , Götz U. Grigoleit
  • , Matthias Schiemann
  • , Dieter Hoffmann
  • , Andrea Dick
  • , Klaus Martin
  • , Martin Hildebrandt
  • , Dirk H. Busch
  • , Michael Neuenhahn
  • Technical University of Munich
  • German Center for Infection Research (DZIF)
  • Juno Therapeutics GmbH
  • German Center for Infection Research (DZIF)
  • Universitätsklinikum Tübingen
  • University of Würzburg
  • University of Munich

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) has become a treatment option for viral reactivations in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (alloHSCT). Animal models have shown that pathogen-specific central memory T cells (TCM) are protective even at low numbers and show long-term survival, extensive proliferation and high plasticity after adoptive transfer. Concomitantly, our own recent clinical data demonstrate that minimal doses of purified (not in-vitro- expanded) human CMV epitope-specific T cells can be sufficient to clear viremia. However, it remains to be determined if human virus-specific TCM show the same promising features for ACT as their murine counterparts. Using a peptide specific proliferation assay (PSPA) we studied the human Adenovirus- (AdV), Cytomegalovirus- (CMV) and Epstein-Barr virus- (EBV) specific TCM repertoires and determined their functional and proliferative capacities in vitro. TCM products were generated from buffy coats, as well as from non-mobilized and mobilized apheresis products either by flow cytometry-based cell sorting or magnetic cell enrichment using reversible Fab-Streptamers. Adjusted to virus serology and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-typing, donor samples were analyzed with MHC multimer- and intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) before and after PSPA. TCM cultures showed strong proliferation of a plethora of functional virus-specific T cells. Using PSPA, we could unveil tiniest virus epitope-specific TCM populations, which had remained undetectable in conventional ex-vivo-staining. Furthermore, we could confirm these characteristics for mobilized apheresis- and GMP-grade Fab-Streptamer-purified TCM products.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0223258
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume14
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2019

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