1. Quantitative TCRrpMHC Dissociation Rate Assessment by NTAmers Reveals Antimelanoma T Cell Repertoires Enriched for High Functional Competence.
- Author
-
Gannon, Philippe O., Wieckowski, Sébastien, Baumgaertner, Petra, Hebeisen, Michaël, Allard, Mathilde, Speiser, Daniel E., and Rufer, Nathalie
- Subjects
- *
T cell receptors , *MAJOR histocompatibility complex , *DISSOCIATION (Chemistry) , *T cells , *IMMUNOTHERAPY , *MELANOMA , *PATIENTS - Abstract
Experimental models demonstrated that therapeutic induction of CD8 T cell responses may offer protection against tumors or infectious diseases providing that T cells have sufficiently high TCR/CD8:pMHC avidity for efficient Ag recognition and consequently strong immune functions. However, comprehensive characterization of TCR/CD8:pMHC avidity in clinically relevant situations has remained elusive. In this study, using the novel NTA-His tag-containing multimer technology, we quantified the TCR:pMHC dissociation rates (koff) of tumor-specific vaccine-induced CD8 T cell clones (n = 139) derived from seven melanoma patients vaccinated with IFA, CpG, and the native/EAA or analog/ELA Melan-AMART-126-35 peptide, binding with low or high affinity to MHC, respectively. We observed substantial correlations between koff and Ca2+ mobilization (p = 0.016) and target cell recognition (p < 0.0001), with the latter independently of the T cell differentiation state. Our strategy was successful in demonstrating that the type of peptide impacted on TCR/CD8:pMHC avidity, as tumor-reactive T cell clones derived from patients vaccinated with the low-affinity (native) peptide expressed slower koff rates than those derived from patients vaccinated with the high-affinity (analog) peptide (p < 0.0001). Furthermore, we observed that the low-affinity peptide promoted the selective differentiation of tumor-specific T cells bearing TCRs with high TCR/CD8:pMHC avidity (p < 0.0001). Altogether, TCR:pMHC interaction kinetics correlated strongly with T cell functions. Our study demonstrates the feasibility and usefulness of TCR/CD8:pMHC avidity assessment by NTA-His tag-containing multimers of naturally occurring polyclonal T cell responses, which represents a strong asset for the development of immunotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF