Aim: To enhance antitumor activity of tumor-draining lymph node(TDLN) cells by autologous dendritic cells(DCs) in-vitro.
Methods: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells(PBMCs) were isolated from the patients with gastric adenocarcinoma and induced with GM-CSF, IL-4 and TNF-alpha to obtain mature DCs which were then sensitized by autologous tumor lysate. TDLN cells were isolated and purified from lymph nodes of the patients and incubated with IL-2. Then we designed three experiment groups: (1)first group: TDLN cells activated by sensitized DCs; (2) second group:TDLN cells activated by autologous tumor lysate; (3)third group: TDLN cells alone, which were used as control. Cytotoxic activity of TDLN cells to gastric adenocarcinoma cell line KATO3 and human melanoma cell line A375 were compared between 3 groups.
Results: The cytotoxicity of TDLN cells activated by sensitized DCs to KATO3 cells was significantly stronger than that of TDLN cells activated by autologous tumor lysate or TDLN cells alone. In contrast, for A375 cells, cytotoxic activities of three TDLN cells had no significant difference.
Conclusion: Specific antitumor activity of TDLN cells can be enhanced significantly by activated autologous DCs.