Current treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients often results in life-threatening immunosuppression. Furthermore, CLL is still an incurable disease due to the persistence of residual leukemic cells. These patients may therefore benefit from immunotherapy approaches aimed at immunoreconstitution and/or the elimination of residual disease following chemotherapy. For these purposes, we designed a simple GMP-compliant protocol for ex vivo expansion of normal T cells from CLL patients' peripheral blood for adoptive therapy, using bispecific Ab blinatumomab (CD3 × CD19), acting both as T cell stimulator and CLL depletion agent, and human rIL-2. Starting from only 10 ml CLL peripheral blood, a mean 515 × 106 CD3+ T cells were expanded in 3 wk. The resulting blinatumomab-expanded T cells (BET) were polyclonal CD4+ and CD8+ and mostly effector and central memory cells. The Th1 subset was slightly prevalent over Th2, whereas Th17 and T regulatory cells were <1%. CMV-specific clones were detected in equivalent proportion before and after expansion. Interestingly, BET cells had normalized expression of the synapse inhibitors CD272 and CD279 compared with starting T cells and were cytotoxic against CD19+ targets in presence of blinatumomab in vitro. In support of their functional capacity, we observed that BET, in combination with blinatumomab, had significant therapeutic activity in a systemic human diffuse large B lymphoma model in NOD-SCID mice. We propose BET as a therapeutic tool for immunoreconstitution of heavily immunosuppressed CLL patients and, in combination with bispecific Ab, as antitumor immunotherapy.

A novel method using blinatumomab for efficient, clinical-grade expansion of polyclonal T cells for adoptive immunotherapy / J. Golay, A. D'Amico, G. Borleri, M. Bonzi, R. Valgardsdottir, R. Alzani, S. Cribioli, C. Albanese, E. Pesenti, M.C. Finazzi, G. Quaresmini, D. Nagorsen, M. Introna, A. Rambaldi. - In: JOURNAL OF IMMUNOLOGY. - ISSN 0022-1767. - 193:9(2014 Nov), pp. 4739-4747.

A novel method using blinatumomab for efficient, clinical-grade expansion of polyclonal T cells for adoptive immunotherapy

A. D'Amico
Secondo
;
M.C. Finazzi;A. Rambaldi
Ultimo
2014

Abstract

Current treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients often results in life-threatening immunosuppression. Furthermore, CLL is still an incurable disease due to the persistence of residual leukemic cells. These patients may therefore benefit from immunotherapy approaches aimed at immunoreconstitution and/or the elimination of residual disease following chemotherapy. For these purposes, we designed a simple GMP-compliant protocol for ex vivo expansion of normal T cells from CLL patients' peripheral blood for adoptive therapy, using bispecific Ab blinatumomab (CD3 × CD19), acting both as T cell stimulator and CLL depletion agent, and human rIL-2. Starting from only 10 ml CLL peripheral blood, a mean 515 × 106 CD3+ T cells were expanded in 3 wk. The resulting blinatumomab-expanded T cells (BET) were polyclonal CD4+ and CD8+ and mostly effector and central memory cells. The Th1 subset was slightly prevalent over Th2, whereas Th17 and T regulatory cells were <1%. CMV-specific clones were detected in equivalent proportion before and after expansion. Interestingly, BET cells had normalized expression of the synapse inhibitors CD272 and CD279 compared with starting T cells and were cytotoxic against CD19+ targets in presence of blinatumomab in vitro. In support of their functional capacity, we observed that BET, in combination with blinatumomab, had significant therapeutic activity in a systemic human diffuse large B lymphoma model in NOD-SCID mice. We propose BET as a therapeutic tool for immunoreconstitution of heavily immunosuppressed CLL patients and, in combination with bispecific Ab, as antitumor immunotherapy.
Animals; Antibodies, Bispecific; Antigens, Surface; Cell Line, Tumor; Cytotoxicity, Immunologic; Disease Models, Animal; Female; Humans; Immunophenotyping; Interleukin-2; Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Chronic, B-Cell; Mice; Phenotype; Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor; T-Lymphocyte Subsets; Cell Culture Techniques; Immunotherapy, Adoptive; Immunology; Medicine (all)
Settore MED/15 - Malattie del Sangue
nov-2014
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/356184
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