Generation Of Tumor-Specific Cytotoxic T-Lymphocytes From Peripheral Blood Of Colorectal Cancer Patients For Adoptive Immunotherapy.

3056 Background: Adoptive T-cell transfer (ACT) using autologous TIL, grown ex vivo and then infused into the cancer patient after lymphoablative chemotherapy, has emerged as an effective treatment for patients with metastatic melanoma. However, this approach has been hampered by the difficulty of isolating TILs from tumors other than melanoma, and of amplifying a sufficient quantity of autologous tumor-reactive T cells. So we decided to adopt a recently described procedure for generating in vitro large numbers of anti-tumor HLA-restricted CTLs, by stimulating patient’s CD8-enriched peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with DCs pulsed with apoptotic solid tumor cells (TCs) as a source of tumor antigens. Methods: 61 patients affected by CRC were enrolled. Tumor biopsies were obtained at surgery, together with 100 ml of heparinized peripheral blood. Tumors were dissociated to a single-cell suspension and cultured in order to obtain tumor cell line from each patient. Dendritic cells (DCs) were generate...