Activated T cell therapy targeting glioblastoma cancer stem cells

Ken Miyaguchi, Hongqiang Wang, Keith L. Black, Stephen L. Shiao, Rongfu Wang, John S. Yu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Naïve T cells become effector T cells following stimulation by antigen-loaded dendritic cells (DCs) and sequential cytokine activation. We aimed to develop procedures to efficiently activate T cells with tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) to glioblastoma (GBM) stem cells. To remove antigen presentation outside of the immunosuppressive tumor milieu, three different glioma stem cell (GSC) specific antigen sources to load DCs were compared in their ability to stimulate lymphocytes. An activated T cell (ATC) protocol including cytokine activation and expansion in culture to target GSCs was generated and optimized for a planned phase I clinical trial. We compared three different antigen-loading methods on DCs to effectively activate T cells, which were GBM patient-derived GSC-lysate, acid-eluate of GSCs and synthetic peptides derived from proteins expressed in GSCs. DCs derived from HLA-A2 positive blood sample were loaded with TAAs. Autologous T cells were activated by co-culturing with loaded DCs. Efficiency and cytotoxicity of ATCs were evaluated by targeting TAA-pulsed DCs or T2 cells, GSCs, or autologous PHA-blasts. Characteristics of ATCs were evaluated by Flow Cytometry and ELISpot assay, which showed increased number of ATCs secreting IFN-γ targeting GSCs as compared with non-activated T cells and unloaded target cells. Neither GSC-lysate nor acid-eluate loading showed enhancement in response of ATCs but the synthetic peptide pool showed significantly increased IFN-γ secretion and increased cytotoxicity towards target cells. These results demonstrate that ATCs activated using a TAA synthetic peptide pool efficiently enhance cytotoxicity specifically to target cells including GSC.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number196
Pages (from-to)196
JournalScientific Reports
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 5 2023

Keywords

  • Humans
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic
  • Glioblastoma/therapy
  • Interferon-gamma/metabolism
  • Antigens, Neoplasm
  • Peptides/metabolism
  • Neoplastic Stem Cells/metabolism
  • Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy
  • Dendritic Cells

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Activated T cell therapy targeting glioblastoma cancer stem cells'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this