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* Center for Surgery Research, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and
Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland, OH 44195
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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In mouse tumor models, the small (<15%) subset of L-selectinlow (CD62Llow) T cells within tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLN)3 includes pre-effector T cells that are naturally sensitized to tumor Ag (8, 9). These pre-effectors can be activated ex vivo by anti-CD3 followed by IL-2 treatment to generate CD4+ and helper-independent CD8+ effector T cells (TE) that retain low L-selectin expression (10, 11). When adoptively transferred into syngeneic mice, such L-selectinlow effector T cells induce regressions of the relevant tumor at all tested anatomic locations, including pulmonary, intradermal (i.d.), and intracranial tumors (11). Consistent with memory effector function, these TE redistribute freely into peripheral tumor sites following i.v. injection and proliferate directly within tumor beds (9, 12, 13).4 Nonetheless, the efficacy with which L-selectinlow TE initially accumulate at individual tumor sites varies considerably, probably due to differences in tumor vascularization and local proinflammatory events (12).
Given such variances, successful immunotherapy of human cancer requires strategies that enable tumor rejection at sites of relatively low as well as high initial accumulation of TE. Therefore, we have extensively compared the mechanisms of tumor rejection under each such circumstance. In many murine tumor models, established i.d. tumor challenges are consistently more difficult to treat with T cell adoptive immunotherapy (AIT) when compared with similarly timed pulmonary or even intracranial challenges (9, 11). The doses of TE required to cure such experimental tumor challenges (i.d.>>brain>lung) correlate inversely to their observed trafficking efficiency into these tumor sites (11, 14). However, even at therapeutically effective doses, far fewer TE initially accumulate within established i.d. tumors compared with other studied anatomic sites (12). The remarkable ability of tumor-specific TE nonetheless to cure even experimental i.d. tumors may depend upon their compensatory proliferation within the tumor bed, as well as upon sustained recruitment of additional cellular rejection elements over a period of days or even weeks (9, 15).4 However, such a protracted rejection mechanism may be intrinsically more vulnerable to immunosuppressive modulations by tumor cells or by other host elements.
In this paper, we report that TE-mediated
rejection of i.d. tumors can be blocked by deliberate or inadvertent
coadministration of suppressor T cells (TS) that
are also induced in TDLN by day 12 (D12) of tumor progression. In
contrast to TE, which are already L-selectin
down-regulated at TDLN harvest (8, 9, 10), tumor-induced
TS are phenotypically
L-selectinhigh at initial harvest. However, only
L-selectinhigh T cells that down-regulate
L-selectin expression during culture activation
(L-selectinhigh
low) display suppressive
activity both in vivo and in vitro. Similar to
L-selectinlow TE,
L-selectinhigh
low TS
display the capacity to traffic readily into tumor beds following
adoptive transfer. The ability of these TS to
achieve effector T cell blockade (i.e., suppress already sensitized and
activated TE) is in contrast to recently
characterized CD4+CD25+ and
other negative regulatory T cells that primarily antagonize the
afferent limb of the immune system (16, 17, 18, 19). Mechanical
elimination of the L-selectinhigh subpopulation
in D12 TDLN before culture activation renders
L-selectinlow TE uniformly
effective as AIT against pulmonary, intracranial, and i.d. tumor
challenges, regardless of their relatively high or low initial
accumulation at these tumor sites.
| Materials and Methods |
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Female C57BL/6N (B6) and BALB/c mice were from the Biologic Testing Branch of the National Cancer Institute (Frederick, MD). B6.PL-Thy1a/Cy (Thy1.1) mice were from The Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME). They were maintained in a pathogen-free environment and used for experiments at 810 wk of age.
Tumors
The MCA-205, MCA-203, and MCA-207 fibrosarcomas, syngeneic to B6 mice, were serially passed in vivo s.c. from cryopreserved mince and used within the eighth transplantation generation (11). The CT-26 colon adenocarcinoma, syngeneic to BALB/c mice, was provided by G. Nabel (Vaccine Research Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD) and similarly maintained. Single-cell suspensions were prepared from solid tumors by digestion with 0.1% collagenase, 0.01% DNase, and 2.5 U/ml hyaluronidase (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO) for 2 h at room temperature (11). These suspensions were injected i.d. to establish i.d. tumors, intracranially to establish intracranial tumors, or i.v. to establish pulmonary tumors.
mAbs and flow cytometry
The MEL-14 hybridoma producing mAb against mouse L-selectin was obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (Manassas, VA) (8). PE-, FITC-, or CyChrome-conjugated rat anti-mouse reagents to CD3, CD4, CD8, Thy1.1, Thy1.2, L-selectin (CD62L), CD25, CD28, CTLA-4 and CD44, as well as subclass-matched control Ab and FITC-conjugated goat anti-rat and mouse anti-rat Ab were purchased from BD PharMingen (San Diego, CA). FACS analyses were performed as previously described (11).
Sensitization and fractionation of syngeneic TDLN cells
Mice were inoculated i.d. with 1.5 x 106 syngeneic tumor cells in each flank. Nine or 12 days later, inguinal TDLN were harvested, and single-cell suspensions prepared mechanically. Immunocolumns containing glass beads coated with goat anti-rat IgG (Rat T; Cedarlane Laboratories, Hornby, Ontario, Canada) and mouse CD62L MicroBeads (Miltenyi Biotec, Auburn, CA) were used to isolate TDLN L-selectinlow and L-selectinhigh subpopulations, respectively. For L-selectinlow preparations, TDLN cells were preincubated for 20 min at 4°C with Mel-14 ascites at 1/10,000 dilution. Cells were washed in Ca2+/Mg2+-free HBSS, and then applied to Rat T columns to isolate L-selectinlow T cells. The first 50-ml pass-through fraction was highly purified (>95%) for L-selectinlow cells by indirect fluorescent analysis. To prepare L-selectinhigh TDLN T cells, lymphocytes were washed in MACS buffer (PBS with 2 mmol EDTA and 0.5% BSA), incubated 30 min at 4°C with 40 µl/ml of mouse CD62L MicroBeads, washed again, and then loaded at 100200 x 106 cells per Midi-MACS column. After rinsing, the positive fraction was collected by plunging 5 ml buffer off the magnet. In some experiments, cells were additionally separated into L-selectinhigh and L-selectinlow subpopulations following 5-day culture using Dynabeads M-450 (Dynal, Lake Success, NY) at a 4:1 beads:cell ratio for L-selectin separation.
Culture activation of TDLN
TDLN T cell preparations were activated on 24-well plates precoated with anti-CD3 mAb (8, 11). Each well contained 4 x 106 cells in 2 ml of complete medium, consisting of RPMI 1640 plus 10% heat-inactivated FCS, 0.1 mM nonessential amino acids, 1 mM sodium pyruvate, 2 mM fresh L-glutamine, 100 mg/ml streptomycin, 100 U/ml penicillin, 50 mg/ml gentamicin, 0.5 mg/ml Fungizone (Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY), and 0.05 mM 2-ME (Sigma-Aldrich). After a 2-day incubation at 37°C, activated cells were suspended in 24 IU/ml human rIL-2 (Chiron, Emeryville, CA) at 12 x 105/ml, cultured in 24-well plates or gas-permeable culture bags (Baxter Healthcare, Deerfield, IL) for 3 days, and then harvested.
Defining naturally occurring proportions of L-selectinhigh and L-selectinlow subsets for AIT studies
For AIT, mice received culture-activated TDLN T cells, either unfractionated (UnF) T cells, fractions purified for low or high L-selectin expression, or combined fractions. When purified L-selectinlow and L-selectinhigh fractions were combined before or after culture, we combined them in ratios simulating their naturally occurring proportions in UnF preparations. Before culture, the observed ratio of L-selectinlow:L-selectinhigh T cells typically ranged between 1:4 and 1:8. To gauge each subpopulations proliferative kinetics during combined culture activation, we preliminarily used congenic Thy1.1 B6-background mice as a source of L-selectinhigh D12 TDLN T cells and Thy1.2 mice as a source of L-selectinlow D12 TDLN T cells. Postculture FACS analysis based on Thy1.1 vs Thy1.2 expression demonstrated that the initially L-selectinlow (Thy 1.2) and initially L-selectinhigh (Thy 1.1) subpopulations each proliferated to a similar degree during 5-day coculture, thus maintaining their original 1:41:8 ratio despite reproducible modulations in their L-selectin expression (our unpublished data). In all experiments reported in Results, TDLN T cell fractions were prepared from normal B6 or BALB/c mice.
AIT of i.d. tumors with TDLN T cell fractions
To establish i.d. tumors in healthy syngeneic mice, 1.5 x
106 viable tumor cells in 50 µl of HBSS were
injected into the midline ventral skin. Because regressions of i.d.
tumors following T cell adoptive transfer are not observed in the
absence of adjunct immunosensitization such as sublethal irradiation or
cyclophosphamide (14), 3 days after tumor inoculation,
mice received conventional immunosensitizing sublethal whole body
irradiation (WBI, 500 rad) from a cesium-137 source
(11), followed by infusion of 5-day culture-activated T
cells in 1.0 ml of HBSS by tail vein. Perpendicular bidimensional tumor
measurements were performed twice weekly with a Vernier caliper, and
the square root of the product scored as the tumor diameter.
Experiments were terminated 4245 days following initial tumor
injection. Historically, mice challenged with weakly immunogenic i.d.
tumors that progressed to
14 mm diameter subsequently experienced
lethal tumor progression regardless of therapy, whereas mice displaying
complete regression of established i.d. tumors were cured. Mice with
i.d. tumors were euthanized and scored as dead from lethal tumor
progression when the i.d. tumor diameter exceeded 14 mm to spare mice
subsequent comorbidities.
AIT of synchronous i.d., intracranial, and pulmonary tumors
Syngeneic B6 mice were simultaneously challenged by 1.5 x 106 MCA-205 tumor cells i.d., 0.1 x 106 MCA-205 tumor cells intracranially, and 0.3 x 106 MCA-205 tumor cells i.v. to establish synchronous tumors. Pilot experiments confirmed that tumor-challenged control mice (without AIT) developed synchronous visceral as well as directly measurable i.d. tumors. Mice were monitored for symptoms of tumor progression mandating euthanasia. Early morbidity from progressive pulmonary metastases consistently preceded the development of any symptoms related to intracranial or i.d. tumors. AIT was initiated 3 days after tumor challenges, following immunosensitizing WBI (500 rad).
In vivo trafficking assay
For fluorochrome labeling, culture-activated L-selectinlow T cells at 1 x 106/ml in HBSS were incubated with 0.5 µg/ml tetramethylrhodamine isothiocyanate (TRITC; Sigma-Aldrich) for 40 min at 37°C (12), and thenwashed twice and resuspended for adoptive transfer. Culture-activated L-selectinhigh subpopulations at 1 x 107 cells/ml were incubated with 5 µM CFSE (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR) in HBSS for 10 min at 37°C, and then washed twice and resuspended for adoptive transfer. Syngeneic mice bearing 3-day i.d. tumors received 500 rad and then were injected i.v. with labeled T cells. Mice were sacrificed 24 h after adoptive transfer; i.d. tumors were harvested, fixed in 4% formalin for 24 h, placed in 30% sucrose for an additional 24 h, snap-frozen in n-hexane at -70°C, and cut into 8-µm sections on a cryostat. Sections were then mounted in Vectashield (Vector Laboratories, Burlingame, CA) and examined confocally using a Leica TCS-SP laser-scanning microscope (Heidelberg, Germany).
IFN-
secretion and detection
Culture-activated T cells (2 x 106)
were exposed in 24-well-plate wells to 0.5 x
106 irradiated (5000 rad) tumor stimulator cells
that were whole-cell enzymatic digests of in vivo passed tumors. After
24 h at 37°C, the supernatants were collected and stored at
-70°C for IFN-
assays. Concentrations of IFN-
were measured by
ELISA using paired mAb and standards purchased from BD PharMingen as
described previously (11).
Statistical analysis
Survival among treatment groups was compared by the Mann-Whitney rank sum test. In addition, individual mice were scored for final treatment outcome (lethal or persistent tumor vs cure) and treatment groups compared. A two-tailed p2 value of <0.050 was considered significant.
| Results |
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TDLN T cells harvested from mice bearing weakly immunogenic tumors contained a minor (<15%) subpopulation of L-selectinlow T cells. When this fraction was isolated from either day 9 (D9) or D12 TDLN, and then culture activated and adoptively transferred into syngeneic mice, 5 x 106 L-selectinlow T cells consistently cured recipient mice bearing 3-day established pulmonary, intracranial, and i.d. tumors (see below and Refs. 11 and 14). As reported previously, cure following such AIT was antigenically restricted to the tumor used for TDLN sensitization and required intratumoral T cell infiltration (8, 9, 10, 11, 13). Furthermore, no adjunct treatment such as rIL-2 was necessary for cure (11).
In contrast to isolated L-selectinlow T cells,
which were therapeutically effective whether obtained from D9 or D12
TDLN, a marked therapeutic disparity was observed when we compared the
potentials of UnF T cells from D9 TDLN to those from D12 TDLN in
treating established i.d. tumors. Culture activation and adoptive
transfer of even 100 x 106 UnF T cells from
D12 TDLN resulted in survival prolongation but almost invariably failed
to prevent lethal i.d. tumor progression (Figs. 1
and 2
). In contrast, as few as 25
x 106
culture-activated UnF T cells from D9 TDLN were consistently as
efficient as 5 x 106 purified D9 or D12
L-selectinlow T cells for achieving i.d. tumor
rejection (Fig. 2
). This striking therapeutic disparity was observed
for both CT-26 and MCA-205 i.d. tumors in syngeneic BALB/c and B6 mice,
respectively, indicating that this phenomenon was not restricted to a
single tumor model or mouse strain (Figs. 1
and 2
).
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Mice were challenged with tumor on a staggered schedule to allow
same-day harvest of D9 and D12 TDLN, from which individual
L-selectinlow and
L-selectinhigh T cells subpopulations were
purified. Fractions were recombined before culture activation in
proportions approximating their natural representation in UnF TDLN. The
inclusion of D12 L-selectinhigh T cells rendered
D9 L-selectinlow T cells ineffective as
subsequent AIT against i.d. tumors. In contrast, the inclusion of D9
L-selectinhigh T cells did not prevent i.d. tumor
rejection by D12 L-selectinlow T cells (Fig. 4
).
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When adoptively transferred as therapy, TE
derived from MCA-205-, MCA-207-, or MCA-203-sensitized mice typically
reject solely the tumor of sensitization, indicating that rejection is
mediated through recognition of TSTA rather than shared tissue Ag
(8, 9, 10, 11, 13). Similarly, in vitro, culture-activated
TE specifically secrete IFN-
only when exposed
to the relevant TSTA-expressing tumor (11, 20). To
determine whether TS from D12 TDLN were also TSTA
restricted, we purified L-selectinhigh T cell
fractions from D12 TDLN of syngeneic mice bearing MCA-205 or MCA-203,
and then proportionately combined these fractions before culture
activation with L-selectinlow T cells purified
from MCA-205 TDLN. As depicted in Fig. 6
, adding L-selectinhigh T cells from either D12
MCA-205 or D12 MCA-203 TDLN suppressed the subsequent capacity of
MCA-205-sensitized TE to reject MCA-205 i.d.
tumors, indicating that TS were not TSTA
restricted. Also consistent with this observation, cultured
L-selectinhigh T cells from TDLN of mice bearing a third
tumor, MCA-207, also suppressed rejection of MCA-205 i.d. tumors when
added to MCA-205-sensitized L-selectinlow TE at
the time of adoptive transfer (our unpublished data).
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We previously reported that tumor-specific
TE in TDLN display low L-selectin expression at
initial TDLN harvest and remain L-selectinlow
during culture activation (8, 10). Therefore, we
investigated whether the suppressor activity of D12 TDLN T cells is
associated with maintained
(L-selectinhigh
high) or with down-regulated
(L-selectinhigh
low) L-selectin expression
during culture activation.
As seen in Fig. 7
, initially
L-selectinhigh TDLN T cell fractions became
heterogeneous for L-selectin expression after 5-day culture activation.
This was an infrequent event in the CD4+ subset
but was a frequent event in the CD8+ subset.
Following culture activation, initially
L-selectinhigh TDLN T cell fractions included
only 14% L-selectinhigh
low
CD4+ T cells, but 3742%
L-selectinhigh
low CD8+ T
cells (Fig. 7
). No clearly distinctive modulations of CD25, CTLA-4,
CD28, CD40L, or CD44 were identified when suppressive D12 and
nonsuppressive D9 L-selectinhigh
low fractions
were comparatively analyzed (Fig. 7
).
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high and
L-selectinhigh
low components at the end of
culture. These components were then individually combined with
separately culture-activated L-selectinlow
TE and adoptively transferred into syngeneic mice
bearing relevant i.d. tumors. As depicted in Fig. 8
low component.
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low T cells from D12
TDLN traffic readily into tumorsBecause down-regulated L-selectin expression was previously correlated to intratumoral accumulation of TE (12, 21), we examined whether intratumoral accumulation of the D12 TDLN suppressor fraction also occurred. TE from TDLN (i.e., L-selectinlow at initial TDLN harvest) were labeled with the fluorescent vital dye TRITC (red), whereas various preparations of initially L-selectinhigh TDLN T cells were pulsed with CFSE (green). Individual preparations were variously combined and adoptively transferred in proportions simulating their natural representation in UnF T cell preparations. At 24 h, mice were sacrificed and intratumoral accumulation of labeled T cells assessed by confocal microscopy.
As seen in Fig. 9
B,
TRITC-labeled, adoptively transferred
L-selectinlow TE initially
accumulated in small numbers at the better vascularized outer rim of
the i.d. tumor bed during the first 24 h after AIT. As previously
reported, such accumulation was many orders lower than their
simultaneous accumulation during this interval in better vascularized
pulmonary and intracranial tumors (12, 21). Nonetheless,
as shown in
Figs. 16![]()
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and 8, even such scant and heterogeneous
accumulation was sufficient to lead to i.d. tumor rejection when 5
x 106 L-selectinlow
TE were administered i.v. as single-agent
AIT.
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low fraction
of T cells from D12 TDLN also accumulated briskly within the outer rim
of the i.d. tumor bed, in contrast to the
L-selectinhigh
high fraction, which lacked
suppressive activity (Fig. 9
low
CD4+ T cells could be isolated for comparison
testing, purified L-selectinhigh
low
CD8+ T cells accumulated in similar numbers as
CD4-undepleted L-selectinhigh
low T cells (our
unpublished data). Simultaneous transfer of
L-selectin-down-regulated TS (CFSE-labeled) and
L-selectinlow TE
(TRITC-labeled) did not detectably alter either subsets intratumoral
accumulation (Fig. 9
Separately cultured, L-selectin-down-regulated TS also
inhibit in vitro IFN-
production by L-selectinlow
TE
Because culture-activated
L-selectinhigh
low T cells from D12 TDLN
traffic efficiently into tumors, they may suppress
TE directly within the tumor bed following
adoptive transfer. Therefore, we examined whether direct contact with
TS derived from D12 TDLN could also inhibit
TE function in vitro.
Before adoptive transfer, MCA-205-sensitized
L-selectinlow TE culture
activated from D9 or D12 TDLN specifically secreted IFN-
when
exposed to the relevant MCA-205 stimulator cells in vitro, but not to
MCA-207 or MCA-203 (Fig. 10
and Refs.
8, 10 , and 11). In contrast, separately
culture-activated, initially L-selectinhigh T
cells from D9 or D12 TDLN secreted negligible amounts of IFN-
when
exposed to MCA-205. In addition, however, those separately
culture-activated L-selectinhigh T cells derived
from D12 TDLN caused a pronounced suppression of IFN-
production when added to TE and MCA-205
stimulator cells (Fig. 10
). Such suppressive activity was markedly
enriched in the L-selectinhigh
low D12
component and was also evidenced by the CD4-depleted
L-selectinhigh
low D12 component (Fig. 10
).
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upon
in vitro exposure to MCA-205 (Fig. 10| Discussion |
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and IL-10 (19, 29), many negative regulatory effects of
CD4+CD25+ T cells appear to
require direct cell-cell contact (16, 17, 29). Although
categories of CD8+ negative regulatory cells are
currently less delineated, it was recently demonstrated that
plasmacytoid dendritic cells (i.e., DC2) can induce
CD8+ TS that inhibit the
activation of naive, but not memory, T cells via secreted IL-10
(30). The present report is the first description of
TS that are spontaneously induced in TDLN early
in tumor progression and that induce effector rather than afferent
blockade. Only the L-selectinhigh
low fraction
of culture-activated D12 TDLN T cells displayed inhibitory properties
both in vitro and in vivo, indicating that suppressor activation was
inextricably linked to acquisition of the down-regulated
L-selectinlow phenotype that is also associated
with enhanced trafficking by memory effector T cells into peripheral
tissues and tumor. The capacity of these
TS to coaccumulate with TE
within the tumor bed (Fig. 9
Effector blockade by tumor-induced TDLN TS is
strikingly evident in the AIT of even early (3-day) established i.d.
tumors. Historically, experimental i.d. tumors have long been
recognized as being poorly susceptible to AIT (9, 11, 12, 14). The reason(s) for this resistance remains conjectural but
is probably linked to relatively constrained tumor vascularization at
this experimental inoculation site. The initial accumulation of
systemically administered TE within experimental
i.d. tumors is several logs lower than their accumulation within better
vascularized experimental pulmonary or intracranial tumors
(12) and is at first confined to the outer tumor rim (Fig. 9
B). Remarkably, unless TS are
coadministered, TE remain highly effective for
mediating i.d. tumor rejection. During effective therapy, the presence
of T cells within i.d. tumors increases over days to weeks and extends
more deeply into the tumor bed (31). Such increases appear
to represent a combination of additional TE
recruitment and intratumoral TE proliferation
(11, 31).4 However, given this
attenuated rejection process, it is unsurprising that
TE at the i.d. location display a particular
susceptibility to tumor-induced TS, which is not
evident in the treatment of 3-day pulmonary or intracranial tumors
(
Figs. 16![]()
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and 8). A similar effector blockade by
tumor-induced TDLN TS is likely to be operative
in more advanced tumor models at additional anatomic locations,
signaled by a disproportionate resistance to adoptively transferred UnF
T cells from D12 TDLN. For example, 15 x
106 L-selectinlow
TE purified from D12 TDLN can be culture
activated and adoptively transferred to cure advanced (10-day
established) intracranial tumors, but even 200 x
106 UnF T cells from the same source are
consistently ineffective, despite an
L-selectinlow TE content
exceeding 25 x 106 (21).
The TS characterized in the present report were
phenotypically L-selectinhigh when initially
harvested from TDLN, but down-regulated L-selectin expression during
culture activation with anti-CD3 plus IL-2. We previously
demonstrated that phenotypically low expression of L-selectin rather
than Ag specificity correlated to the enhanced ability of
TE to gain entry to tumors following adoptive
transfer (12), and this observation is now extended to
L-selectinhigh
low tumor-induced
TS (Fig. 9
). Furthermore, consistent with our
earlier studies, similarly enhanced intratumoral accumulation is also
observed for L-selectinhigh T cells from both D9
TDLN and normal spleen after they are culture activated (i.e., largely
L-selectin down-regulated), even though they lack either effector or
suppressor function (Fig. 4
and our unpublished data).
Therefore, enhanced T cell intratumoral accumulation is frequently
observed in conjunction with culture activation and L-selectin
down-regulation; can be variously associated with memory effector
function, suppressor function, or no therapeutic impact; and does not
appear to be Ag restricted.
FACS analyses have not yet revealed clearly distinctive modulations in
the D12 TDLN L-selectinhigh
low subpopulation
that would phenotypically link these tumor-induced
TS to previously described
CD8+CD28low
(32) or
CD4+CD25+ (29)
suppressor subpopulations (Fig. 7
). The
L-selectinhigh
low TS
fraction contained far more CD8+ than
CD4+ T cells following 5-day culture activation
due to the CD8+ subsets greater propensity to
proliferate and down-regulate L-selectin (e.g., Fig. 7
A).
Following L-selectin down-regulation, CD8+
TS were phenotypically indistinguishable from
L-selectinlow CD8+
helper-independent TE (11), and
could both mediate suppression and traffic into the tumor bed in the
absence of the CD4+ subset (Fig. 10
and our
unpublished data). Due to the relative scarcity of
L-selectinhigh
low CD4+
TDLN T cells at the end of 5-day culture (Fig. 7
A), it was
not possible to purify sufficient numbers to determine whether the
CD4+ subset also mediates suppression
independently. Ongoing efforts to expand TS in
long-term culture may enable meaningful functional comparisons of
purified L-selectinhigh
low
CD4+ and CD8+ subsets.
Despite their putative TS content and impaired
ability to reject i.d. tumors (
Figs. 15![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
), culture-activated UnF T
cells from D12 TDLN displayed robust IFN-
production upon tumor
exposure in vitro (Fig. 10
). In contrast, separately
culture-activated L-selectinhigh
low
TS from the same D12 TDLN demonstrably inhibited
the function of L-selectinlow
TE both in vitro (IFN-
production, Fig. 10
)
and in vivo (rejection of i.d. tumors, Fig. 8
). Given this disparity,
the mechanistic relevance of experimentally observed in vitro
suppression to in vivo effector blockade by TS is
presently uncertain. Furthermore, because IFN-
secretion itself is
unessential for TE-mediated rejection of
experimental i.d. tumors (33), suppression of other
elements of TE function (e.g., intratumoral
TE proliferation)4 is more
likely to be relevant to in vivo effector blockade. Therefore, ongoing
mechanistic studies are focused principally on in vivo rather than in
vitro perturbation by TS. Experiments are also in
progress to determine whether observed cross-suppression (Fig. 6
)
reflects a true lack of classical Ag or MHC restriction, or rather
an MHC-restricted cross-reactivity to shared tumor Ag.
Because only TE could be culture activated
from D9 TDLN, whereas both TE and
TS could be culture activated from D12 TDLN, it
is likely that sensitization of memory TE
temporally precedes tumor induction of
L-selectinhigh TS. Because
TS function was not apparent either in vitro or
in vivo in the absence of down-regulated L-selectin expression (
Figs. 710![]()
![]()
![]()
), the L-selectinhigh fraction within D12
TDLN most likely constitutes as-yet-unactivated
TS. Furthermore, given the high therapeutic
potency of L-selectinlow
TE isolated from D12 TDLN (e.g.,
Figs. 24![]()
![]()
), it
is unlikely that this fraction contains significant numbers of
L-selectinhigh
low TS.
However, it remains to be determined whether continued tumor
progression results in a natural appearance of
L-selectinhigh
low TS
within TDLN after D12, leading to functional subversion of
TE within the L-selectinlow
fraction. This would be consistent with the observed inability to
activate functional TE from TDLN by day 21 of
tumor bearing (our unpublished data and Ref. 34).
Historically, many AIT strategies have cured experimental murine
pulmonary tumors yet failed to cure experimental i.d. tumors (9, 15). The present studies clearly demonstrate that failure to
cure established murine i.d. tumors can result simply from the
inadvertent cotransfer of passenger TS, even when
otherwise sufficient doses of TE were adoptively
transferred. While the clinical relevance of these observations remains
to be determined, the failure of clinical AIT trials in the past,
frequently despite in vitro evidence that potent
TE were administered (35, 36), may
also have its roots in the inadvertent coadministration of passenger
TS rather than a failure to administer adequate
doses of functional TE per se.
Although trafficking of administered TE into
patient tumors has been observed in previous clinical studies
(37, 38), the low magnitude and unevenness of intratumoral
T cell accumulation parallels that typically observed at mouse i.d.
tumor sites (12, 21). Furthermore, as demonstrated in Fig. 10
, therapeutically ruinous tumor-induced TS can
be functionally silent during routine in vitro assays of UnF T cell
preparations before their administration.
In mouse models of AIT that use D12 TDLN as a source of anti-tumor
TE, distinctively high initial expression of
L-selectin allows for ready removal of unactivated
TS before culture activation. Similar L-selectin
or CCR7-based separations may be considerably more difficult to achieve
in animals and patients with longer-established tumors, because
activation and L-selectin down-regulation of TS
may already have occurred, leading not only to nodal paralysis but also
to redistribution and even active tumor bed colonization by
L-selectin-down-regulated TS. Therefore,
we are actively pursuing additional phenotypic distinctions that would
permit clear delineation of L-selectin-down-regulated
TS from L-selectin-down-regulated
TE. Identification of specific factors mediating
L-selectinhigh
low T cell suppression may
additionally facilitate in vitro detection of potentially detrimental
TS activity before adoptive transfer. Finally, we
are investigating the ability of adjunct costimulatory or T1-promoting
treatments such as OX-40 ligation and IL-12 to compensate for an
enduring presence of passenger
L-selectinhigh
low TS
(21, 39), thereby enabling UnF TDLN T cells to be
effectively deployed as AIT even when passenger
TS cannot readily be purged.
| Footnotes |
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2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Peter A. Cohen, Center for Surgery Research, FF5-02, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44195. E-mail address: cohenp{at}ccf.org ![]()
3 Abbreviations used in this paper: TDLN, tumor-draining lymph node; AIT, adoptive immunotherapy; D9, day 9; D12, day 12; i.d., intradermal; WBI, whole body irradiation; TE, effector T cells; TS, suppressor T cells; TRITC, tetramethylrhodamine isothiocyanate; TSTA, tumor-specific transplantation Ag; UnF, unfractionated. ![]()
4 J. Kjaergäard, L. Peng, P. A. Cohen, and S. Shu. Therapeutic efficacy of adoptive immunotherapy is predicated on in vivo Ag-specific proliferation of donor T cells. Submitted for publication. ![]()
Received for publication June 18, 2002. Accepted for publication August 30, 2002.
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