Primed tumor-reactive multifunctional CD62L+ human CD8+ T cells for immunotherapy

T cell-mediated immunotherapy against malignancies has been shown to be effective for certain types of cancer. However, ex vivo expansion of tumor-reactive T cells has been hindered by the low precursor frequency of such cells, often requiring multiple rounds of stimulation, resulting in full differentiation, loss of homing receptors and potential exhaustion of the expanded T cells. Here, we show that when using highly purified naïve CD8⁺ T cells, a single stimulation with peptide-pulsed, IFNγ/LPS-matured dendritic cells in combination with the sequential use of IL-21, IL-7 and IL-15 is sufficient for extensive expansion of antigen-specific T cells. Short-term expanded T cells were tumor-reactive, multifunctional and retained a central-memory-like phenotype (CD62L⁺, CCR7⁺, CD28⁺). The procedure is highly reproducible and robust as demonstrated for different healthy donors and for cancer patients. Such short-term tumor-antigen-primed, multifunctional T cells may therefore serve as a platform to target different malignancies accessible to immunotherapy.