Donor CD8+ T cells mediate graft-versus-leukemia activity without clinical signs of graft-versus-host disease in recipients conditioned with anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody.

Donor CD8(+) T cells play a critical role in mediating graft-vs-leukemia (GVL) activity, but also induce graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) in recipients conditioned with total body irradiation (TBI). In this study, we report that injections of donor C57BL/6 (H-2(b)) or FVB/N (H-2(q)) CD8(+) T with bone marrow cells induced chimerism and eliminated BCL1 leukemia/lymphoma cells without clinical signs of GVHD in anti-CD3-conditioned BALB/c (H-2(d)) recipients, but induced lethal GVHD in TBI-conditioned recipients. Using in vivo and ex vivo bioluminescent imaging, we observed that donor CD8(+) T cells expanded rapidly and infiltrated GVHD target tissues in TBI-conditioned recipients, but donor CD8(+) T cell expansion in anti-CD3-conditioned recipients was confined to lymphohematological tissues. This confinement was associated with lack of up-regulated expression of alpha(4)beta(7) integrin and chemokine receptors (i.e., CXCR3) on donor CD8(+) T cells. In addition, donor CD8(+) T cells in anti-CD3-conditioned recipients were rendered unresponsive, anergic, Foxp3(+), or type II cytotoxic T phenotype. Those donor CD8(+) T cells showed strong suppressive activity in vitro and mediated GVL activity without clinical signs of GVHD in TBI-conditioned secondary recipients. These results indicate that anti-CD3 conditioning separates GVL activity from GVHD via confining donor CD8(+) T cell expansion to host lymphohemological tissues as well as tolerizing them in the host.