Dissection of T-cell antigen specificity in human melanoma

Cancer Res. 2012 Apr 1;72(7):1642-50. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-11-2614. Epub 2012 Feb 6.

Abstract

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) isolated from melanoma patients and expanded in vitro by interleukin (IL)-2 treatment can elicit therapeutic response after adoptive transfer, but the antigen specificities of the T cells transferred have not been determined. By compiling all known melanoma-associated antigens and applying a novel technology for high-throughput analysis of T-cell responses, we dissected the composition of melanoma-restricted T-cell responses in 63 TIL cultures. T-cell reactivity screens against 175 melanoma-associated epitopes detected 90 responses against 18 different epitopes predominantly from differentiation and cancer-testis antigens. Notably, the majority of these responses were of low frequency and tumor-specific T-cell frequencies decreased during rapid expansion. A further notable observation was a large variation in the T-cell specificities detected in cultures established from different fragments of resected melanoma lesions. In summary, our findings provide an initial definition of T-cell populations contributing to tumor recognition in TILs although the specificity of many tumor-reactive TILs remains undefined.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antigens, Neoplasm / immunology*
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
  • Humans
  • Lymphocytes, Tumor-Infiltrating / immunology*
  • Melanoma / immunology*
  • T-Cell Antigen Receptor Specificity / immunology*
  • Viruses / immunology

Substances

  • Antigens, Neoplasm
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte