Expansion And Immunological Study Of Human Tumor Infiltrating γδ T Lymphocytes In Vitro And In Vivo

γδ TCR-bearing cells have been previously characterized, based on their expression of distinct TCR chains and their unique tissue distribution. They constitute 1-10 % of T lymphocytes in peripheral blood lymphocytes(PBL). yS T cells are composed of the first line of defense mechanisms in host, which are capable of providing a source of immune effector T cells and, cytokines such as IL-4 or IFN-γ. Exclusive expansion of particular subset of γδ T cells has been observed in variety of different diseases; such as in PBLs of patients with EBV or HIV infections, in the lungs of patients infected with Mycobacterium leprae, in synovial fluid from patients with rheumatoid arthritis, in cerebrospinal fluid from patients with acute multiple sclerosis, in intestinal lesions from patients with coelical disease and in acute or chronic graft rejections in heart transplant patients.γδ T cell invokes great interests of many immunologists for its unique nature of antigen recognition and cytotoxic activity in recent years. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is broadly applied in the clinical researches of adoptive immunotherapy because of its strong tumor killing activity, which is 100 times higher than that of lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells. Preferential expansion and cytotoxic antitumor response of the subsets of γδ TILs have been demonstrated in patients with a variety of tumors, including adenocarcinoma of lung, pancreatic cancer, renal cell cancer, colorectal cancer, and so on. Such γδ T cells exhibit a characteristic recognition pattern, lysing the autologous and allogeneic cell lines with similar histologies. The cytotoxicity of these γδ T cells show no MHC restriction. Unique cytotoxicity of γδ T cells to tumor cells have prompted some investigators to put forward to a new strategy, that is,...