Expansion of autorecognitive cytotoxic effectors in human cancer by T cell growth factor (Interleukin 2)1.

Conditions for the production of supernates from mitogen stimulated human lymphocytes with the capacity to induce proliferation in long term MLC or PHA stimulated cultures which no longer respond to PHA have been investigated. These supernates can be used to maintain lymphocytes in continuous growth with a doubling time of approximately 48 hours. Cells grown from MLC stimulated cultures show less than 80% SRBC rosetting cells, are Fc-, do not show ADCC activity and induce reduced lysis of K562 compared with freshly isolated effectors. Cultured T cells (CTC) show high lytic activity against the inducing PHA blasts but not autologous or third part targets. Similar experiments have been performed with lymphocytes from the blood, lymph node, spleen and tumour of cancer patients and CTC tested for cytotoxicity against autologous and allogeneic tumour cells and the K562 compared with freshly isolated effectors. Cultured T cells (CTC) show high lytic activity against the inducing PHA blasts but not autologous or third part targets. Similar experiments have been performed with lymphocytes from the blood, lymph node, spleen and tumour of cancer patients and CTC tested for cytotoxicity against autologous and allogeneic tumour cells and the K562 cell line. Cytotoxicity for autologous tumour was found in all samples. This was accompanied by killing of allogeneic cells in most instances but killing of K562 was only rarely demonstrable. These data would be consistent with a polyclonal expansion of cytotoxic effectors in the samples. The finding of autologous reactivity suggests the presence of autorecognitive cytotoxic T cells in cancer patients with specificity for tumour. Cloning experiments are currently in progress to investigate this possibility further.