Adenovirus-specific T-cell Subsets in Human Peripheral Blood and After IFN-γ Immunomagnetic Selection

J Immunother. 2016 Jan;39(1):27-35. doi: 10.1097/CJI.0000000000000105.

Abstract

Adoptive antiviral cellular immunotherapy by infusion of virus-specific T cells (VSTs) is becoming an alternative treatment for viral infection after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The T memory stem cell (TSCM) subset was recently described as exhibiting self-renewal and multipotency properties which are required for sustained efficacy in vivo. We wondered if such a crucial subset for immunotherapy was present in VSTs. We identified, by flow cytometry, TSCM in adenovirus (ADV)-specific interferon (IFN)-γ+ T cells before and after IFN-γ-based immunomagnetic selection, and analyzed the distribution of the main T-cell subsets in VSTs: naive T cells (TN), TSCM, T central memory cells (TCM), T effector memory cell (TEM), and effector T cells (TEFF). In this study all of the different T-cell subsets were observed in the blood sample from healthy donor ADV-VSTs, both before and after IFN-γ-based immunomagnetic selection. As the IFN-γ-based immunomagnetic selection system sorts mainly the most differentiated T-cell subsets, we observed that TEM was always the major T-cell subset of ADV-specific T cells after immunomagnetic isolation and especially after expansion in vitro. Comparing T-cell subpopulation profiles before and after in vitro expansion, we observed that in vitro cell culture with interleukin-2 resulted in a significant expansion of TN-like, TCM, TEM, and TEFF subsets in CD4IFN-γ T cells and of TCM and TEM subsets only in CD8IFN-γ T cells. We demonstrated the presence of all T-cell subsets in IFN-γ VSTs including the TSCM subpopulation, although this was weakly selected by the IFN-γ-based immunomagnetic selection system.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adenoviridae / immunology*
  • Adenoviridae Infections / immunology
  • Adenoviridae Infections / therapy
  • Antigens, Surface / metabolism
  • Cell Culture Techniques
  • Cytotoxicity, Immunologic
  • Healthy Volunteers
  • Humans
  • Immunologic Memory
  • Immunomagnetic Separation
  • Immunophenotyping
  • Immunotherapy, Adoptive
  • Interferon-gamma / metabolism*
  • Lymphocyte Count*
  • Phenotype
  • T-Cell Antigen Receptor Specificity / immunology*
  • T-Lymphocyte Subsets / immunology*
  • T-Lymphocyte Subsets / metabolism*

Substances

  • Antigens, Surface
  • Interferon-gamma