Malignant and nonmalignant T cell lines from human T cell lymphotropic virus type I-negative patients with Sézary syndrome.

The establishment of an in vitro model for cutaneous T cell lymphomas and Sézary syndrome has been difficult since T cells from individuals with these diseases do not proliferate in response to T cell mitogens. We found that conditioned media, collected from mitogen-activated PBMC from Sézary patients, contain an IL-2 receptor inducing factor. Despite their ostensible proliferative disorder, using a combination Sézary cell-conditioned media and rIL-2, we established IL-2 responsive, human T cell lymphotropic virus type I negative T cell lines from 23 patients, nine of which contain cells with the structural and/or genetic characteristics of neoplastic Sézary T cells.