Adoptive immunotherapy with murine tumor-specific T lymphocytes engineered to secrete interleukin 2.

Abstract

Adoptive immunogene therapy of cancer is not widely studied, although it has been proposed as a promising strategy for cancer gene therapy. One of the major obstacles to this approach is the difficulty in introducing cytokine genes efficiently into T lymphocytes. In this report, we developed an adoptive immunotherapy model with murine tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes. By using an adenoviral vector, we achieved up to 100% gene transduction of murine T lymphocytes. Treatment of mice with the cytotoxic T lymphocytes genetically modified to produce interleukin 2 resulted in reduction of tumor metastasis and longer survival from intracerebral tumor death, providing a hopeful strategy for treatments of human cancers.