4-1BB-mediated expansion affords superior detection of in vivo primed effector memory CD8+ T cells from melanoma sentinel lymph nodes.

We have been studying the re-activation of tumor-associated antigen (TAA)-specific CD8(+) T cells in sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) of melanoma patients upon intradermal administration of the CpG-B oligodeoxynucleotide PF-3512676. To facilitate functional testing of T cells from small SLN samples, high-efficiency polyclonal T cell expansion is required. In this study, SLN cells were expanded via classic methodologies with plate- or bead-bound anti-CD3/CD28 antibodies and with the K562/CD32/4-1BBL artificial APC system (K32/4-1BBL aAPC) and analyzed for responsiveness to common recall or TAA-derived peptides. K32/4-1BBL-expanded T cell populations contained significantly more effector/memory CD8(+) T cells. Moreover, recall and melanoma antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells were more frequently detected in K32/4-1BBL-expanded samples as compared with anti-CD3/CD28-expanded samples. We conclude that K32/4-1BBL aAPC are superior to anti-CD3/CD28 antibodies for the expansion of in vivo-primed specific CD8(+) T cells and that their use facilitates the sensitive monitoring of functional anti-tumor T cell immunity in SLN.