Feasibility of immunotherapy of relapsed leukemia with ex vivo-generated cytotoxic T lymphocytes specific for hematopoietic system-restricted minor histocompatibility antigens

Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) is a common treatment of hematologic malignancies. Recurrence of the underlying malignancy is a major cause of treatment failure. Donor-derived cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) specific for patients' minor histocompatibility antigens (mHags) play an important role in both graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) reactivities. mHags HA-1 and HA-2 induce HLA-A*0201-restricted CTLs in vivo and are exclusively expressed on hematopoietic cells, including leukemic cells and leukemic precursors, but not on fibroblasts, keratinocytes, or liver cells. The chemical nature of the mHags HA-1 and HA-2 is known. We investigated the feasibility of ex vivo generation of mHag HA-1- and HA-2-specific CTLs from unprimed mHag HA-1- and/or HA-2-negative healthy blood donors. HA-1 and HA-2 synthetic peptide-pulsed dendritic cells (DCs) were used as antigen-presenting cells (APC) to stimulate autologous unprimed CD8(+) T cells. The ex vivo-generated HA-1- and HA-2-specific CTLs efficiently lyse leukemic cells derived from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) patients. No lytic reactivity was detected against nonhematopoietic cells. Sufficient numbers of the CTLs can be obtained for the adoptive immunotherapy purposes. In conclusion, we present a feasible, novel therapy for the treatment for relapsed leukemia after BMT with a low risk of GVHD.