Impact of γ-chain cytokines on EBV-specific T cell cultures

Abstract

Background: Recent preclinical adoptive immunotherapy studies in murine models prompt to employ "proper" rather than "as many as possible" antigen-specific T cells to gain better therapeutic results. Ideally, "proper" T cells are poorly differentiated in vitro, but retain the capacity to fully differentiate into effector cells in vivo, where they can undergo long-term survival and strong proliferation. Such requirements can be achieved by modifying culture conditions, namely using less "differentiating" cytokines than IL-2.Methods: To evaluate this issue in human T cell cultures, we exploited a well characterized and clinical-grade protocol finalized at generating EBV-specific CTL for adopti..