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Division of Clinical Onco-Immunology, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and
Multidisciplinary Oncology Center, University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland; and
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne Branch, University of Lausanne, Epalinges, Switzerland
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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Avidity of Ag recognition by tumor-specific CD8+ T cells strictly correlates with the efficiency of tumor recognition as shown in several antigenic systems (6, 7) and is indeed one of the main parameters that determines the potency of a tumor rejection Ag (13). With the aim of selectively identifying tumor-reactive CD8+ T lymphocytes among heterogeneous populations, it is important to determine whether, and under which conditions, staining with fluorescent multimers can provide information on the functional avidity of the populations under study. In this work, we have analyzed the efficiency of multimer staining of tumor Ag-specific T cell clonal populations that recognize the tumor Ag-derived peptide MAGE-A10254265 with different functional avidity. We found that the relative efficiency of staining with the corresponding fluorescent MHC class I/peptide multimeric complexes can vary considerably with staining conditions and does not necessarily correlate with avidity of Ag recognition. In contrast, we found a clear correlation between functional avidity and stability of peptide/MHC class I complex interaction with TCR as measured in dissociation kinetic experiments. Similar results were also found in two additional tumor Ag systems.
| Materials and Methods |
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Monoclonal MAGE-A10-specific CD8+ T cell populations were obtained from melanoma patients and healthy donors as described previously (7). Clones LAU50/15, LAU155/6D1, LAU169/4E8, and healthy donor (HD)3795/4D11 were obtained from peptide MAGE-A10254262-stimulated CD8+ T cells from peripheral blood of melanoma patients LAU50, LAU155, and LAU169, and of donor HD795, respectively. NY-ESO-1 (LAU156/49 and HD007/1F8)-and Melan-A (HD421/4B4 and HD421/1E3)-specific CD8+ T cell clones were similarly derived from tumor-infiltrating lymph node or peptide-stimulated PBL of the indicated melanoma patient or healthy donor. Polyclonal Melan-A monospecific lines from melanoma patient LAU337 were obtained by ex vivo sorting of Melan-A multimer+CD8+ T cells followed by in vitro stimulation in the presence of PHA and irradiated allogeneic feeder cells as described elsewhere.4 The melanoma cell line NA8-MEL was kindly provided by Dr. F. Jotereau (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Unité 463, Nantes, France). The melanoma cell line Me 275 was generated in our laboratory from a surgically excised melanoma metastasis from patient LAU50.
Ag recognition assay
Functional avidity of Ag recognition was assessed by chromium-release assay. Briefly, chromium-labeled target T2 cells (1,000 per well) were incubated in the presence of serial dilutions of parental peptide or analogs and effector cells at an E:T cell ratio of 10:1. Tumor recognition was assessed by incubating chromium-labeled target cells (1,000 per well) loaded or not with the indicated peptide (1 µM) with effectors at the indicated ratio. Chromium release was measured in the supernatant after 4 h of incubation at 37°C. The percentage of specific lysis was calculated as 100 x (experimental spontaneous release/total spontaneous release).
MHC/peptide multimers and flow cytometry analysis
HLA-A2/peptide multimers were synthesized as described (1, 14) using peptides MAGE-A10254262 (GLYDGMEHL, Ref. 15), Melan-A2635 A27L (ELAGIGILTV, Ref. 16) or NY-ESO-1157165 C165A (SLLMWITQA, Ref. 17). All Abs were obtained from BD Biosciences (San Jose, CA). For multimer binding assay T cell clones were incubated with the indicated concentration of multimers for the indicated incubation time in PBS, 0.2% BSA, and 0.02% sodium azide (staining and washing buffer). Cells were then washed with the same buffer and immediately analyzed using a FACScan (BD Biosciences) or fixed with PBS, 1% formaldehyde, 2% glucose, and 0.3% sodium azide (fixing buffer) for later analysis. Data analysis was performed using CellQuest software (BD Biosciences).
MHC/peptide multimer dissociation assays
For dissociation experiments T cells were stained with multimers at the indicated dose during 2 h at room temperature. Cells were then washed two times (at 4°C) in 1 ml/sample to eliminate unbound multimers and resuspended in the same buffer. An aliquot (corresponding to t0) was taken and the incubation was then pursued for an additional 90 min at room temperature in the presence of an excess (75 µg/ml) of unlabeled multimers to avoid rebinding of PE-labeled multimers after their dissociation from the TCR. During this period, aliquots of cells were collected at different time points, washed, and fixed before analysis by flow cytometry. Intensity of multimer fluorescence at each time point was expressed as the percentage of multimer fluorescence at time t0.
| Results and Discussion |
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Functional avidity of Ag recognition and efficiency of staining
with multimers was initially compared for four CTL clones specific for
peptide MAGE-A10254262 (15). The
CTL clones were all derived from different individuals and displayed
different
variable and/or CDR3 region sequences as
previously reported (7). Clones LAU155/6D1 and LAU50/15
(Fig. 1
A) recognized peptide
MAGE-A10254262 with relatively high avidity
(50% maximal target cell lysis required was
500 pM) and were able
to efficiently kill the MAGE-A10-expressing tumor cell line Me 275
(Fig. 1
B). In contrast, CTL clones LAU169/4E8 and HD795/4D11
required significantly higher concentrations of peptide to achieve 50%
maximal target cell lysis (
100 nM) and failed to kill Me 275 cells
(Fig. 1
). Functional avidity also directly correlated with the level of
Ag-induced TCR down-regulation (data not shown). Relative efficiency of
staining with A2/MAGE-A10254262 peptide
multimers on specific clones was measured under different conditions of
incubation time and temperature (Fig. 2
).
All clones analyzed expressed comparable levels of TCR and CD8 as
assessed by staining with specific mAbs (data not shown). Both the
efficiency of staining with A2/MAGE-A10254262
peptide multimers on Ag-specific monoclonal population and the
background staining measured on a monoclonal population of unrelated
specificity were dose dependent (Fig. 2
A). As illustrated in
Fig. 2
B, for clones LAU169/4E8, HD795/4D11, and LAU155/6D1
the efficiency of multimer staining directly correlated with functional
avidity and only marginally varied with staining conditions in the case
of the first two clones, whereas it increased with temperature and
particularly with incubation time in the case of the latter. For clone
LAU50/15 staining efficiency at 4°C was comparable to that of
low-avidity clones irrespectively of the incubation period (Fig. 2
B). However, as in the case of clone LAU155/6D1, the
fluorescence signal increased with the incubation temperature and even
more significantly with time, approaching, upon incubation during
4 h at 37°C, levels comparable to the ones obtained with the
latter. Qualitatively, similar results were obtained using different
doses of multimers (Fig. 2
). It is also of note that differences in the
dose of multimers required to obtain comparable fluorescence
intensities for the different populations analyzed were in general
relatively modest, irrespective of the staining condition used (Fig. 2
A and data not shown), when compared with the differences
in the dose of antigenic peptide required to obtain half maximal lysis
(Fig. 1
A). The molecular bases of the relative inefficiency
of clone LAU50/15 to bind multimers at 4°C as well as of its improved
ability to do so at higher temperature and upon prolonged incubation
periods are not immediately obvious. Accumulating experimental evidence
clearly indicates that molecular factors that can affect multimer
staining are more numerous and their effects more complex that
anticipated. In particular, integrity of lipid rafts has been recently
shown to significantly influence multimer binding to
CD8+ T cells (10, 11). Thus, an
attractive hypothesis to explain the differences between clones
LAU155/6D1 and LAU50/15 is that in the case of the first both TCR
and/or coreceptor molecules would already be present on the cell
surface in association with lipid rafts before interaction with
multimers, whereas in the case of the latter such association would
mostly take place after interaction with multimers.
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Kinetic models of TCR-ligand interaction, supported by several
lines of experimental evidence (18, 19, 20), have indicated
that the potency of a ligand is primarily determined by the duration of
its interaction with the TCR. To evaluate the applicability of this
concept to the identification of high-avidity CTLs, we measured the
relative stability of multimer binding to CTL clones displaying
different functional avidity. We first analyzed the interaction of
multimers with CTL clones specific for the MAGE-A10 Ag over time.
Incubation at room temperature resulted in a rapid increase of the mean
fluorescence for all populations analyzed within the first 2 h and
only moderately increased thereafter (Fig. 4
A). Similar results were
obtained for NY-ESO-1- and Melan-A-specific clones (data not shown).
Ligand dissociation from the TCR was measured as decay of multimer
staining over time in the presence of an excess of unlabeled multimers
as detailed in Materials and Methods. It is of note that for
the clonal populations used in this study, decay of multimer staining
in the absence of cold multimer addition was only minor to undetectable
(data not shown). In several other studies, mAb directed against MHC
class I molecules have been used to prevent rebinding of dissociated
multimers. When using this method we noticed that anti-MHC class I
mAb could, depending on the experimental condition and in a
clone-dependent fashion, either inhibit or enhance multimer binding
(our unpublished observations). Therefore, we routinely used
cold multimers to compete over labeled
multimersPE when measuring kinetics of staining
decay.
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Conclusions
Whereas the availability of fluorescent MHC/peptide multimers has tremendously improved our ability of detecting and isolating tumor Ag-specific T cells, the results reported above and in other studies (5, 8, 9) indicate that either no significant differences in the efficiency of multimer staining of tumor Ag-specific clonal populations displaying different functional avidity of Ag recognition and tumor reactivity, or differences that do not directly correlate with the latter, are common findings. However, our data clearly indicate that a better evaluation of the relative ability of tumor Ag-specific CTL to recognize and destroy tumor cells is based on the measure of TCR dissociation kinetics from multimers incorporating synthetic peptides corresponding to naturally processed tumor Ag peptides. Analyzing dissociation rates of multimers from TCRs of CD8+ T cell populations under test could considerably improve the qualitative value of multimer-based molecular monitoring of clinical trials of cancer vaccination with CTL-defined immunogens and could be instrumental for the isolation of tumor Ag-specific CTL populations with high functional avidity and tumor reactivity to be used for adoptive transfer therapy.
| Footnotes |
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2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Danila Valmori, Division dOnco-Immunologie Clinique, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Hôpital Orthopédique, Niveau 5, Avenue Pierre-Decker, 4, CH 1005 Lausanne, Switzerland. E-mail address: danila.valmori{at}inst.hospvd.ch ![]()
3 Abbreviation used in this paper: HD, healthy donor. ![]()
4 D. Valmori, V. Dutoit, V. Schnuriger, A.-L. Quiquerez, M. J. Pittet, P. Guillaume, V. Rubio-Godoy, P. R. Walker, D. Rimoldi, D. Liénard, D. Speiser, J.-C. Cerottini, P. Romero, and P.-Y. Dietrich. Vaccination with a Melan-A peptide selects an oligoclonal T cell population with increased functional avidity and tumor reactivity. Submitted for publication. ![]()
Received for publication October 3, 2001. Accepted for publication November 27, 2001.
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secretion and binding of A2/peptide multimers to TCR reveals interclonal dissociation of CTL effector function from TCR-peptide/MHC complexes half-life. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98:10302.This article has been cited by other articles:
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