FUNCTIONAL-CHARACTERIZATION OF HUMAN T-CELLS IMMORTALIZED BY ONCOGENETRANSFECTION

We have succeeded in immortalizing human lymphocytes derived from the peripheral blood of a healthy donor and of an atopic patient, and from the lymph node of a cancer patient by oncogene transfection (Alam et al., 1996). All immortalized human lymphocytes were shown to be CD3(+) and CD19(-), indicating that these immortalized human lymphocytes wer e all T cells. We established 317, 154 and 692 individual immortalized human T cell lines derived from the healthy donor, the atopic patient and the cancer patient, respectively. The ratios of CD4(+) and CD8(+) subpopulations within the set containing immortalized T cells derived from the healthy donor were shown to be varied depending on the combi nations of transfected oncogenes used. However, CD8(+) cells were foun d to be the dominant subpopulation of immortalized T cells derived fro m the atopic patient and the cancer patient. These immortalized T cell s showed different proliferative responses in the presence of exogenou s human IL-2 depending on their origin, and was consistent with the su rface expression of the IL-2 receptor. Furthermore, the cytokine secre tion patterns of these immortalized T cells stimulated with mitogen we re investigated. The results showed that the immortalized T cells from the healthy donor is able to secrete various kinds of cytokines such as IL-2, IL-10, gamma-IFN and GM-CSF. However, immortalized T cells fr om the cancer patient was shown to only secrete IL-2 and GM-CSF. These results suggest that depending on the origin, the immortalized T cell s came from different subsets or from cells in different activated sta tes. Mixed lymphocytes reactions demonstrated that these immortalized T cells are able to proliferate in the presence of allogenic or xenoge nic stimulator cells, suggesting that they maintain the ability to rec ognize specific antigens on the stimulator cells and can proliferate e ven after the immortalization. Furthermore, immortalized T cells deriv ed from the healthy donor and the cancer patient strongly responded to K562 cells, suggesting that MHC-nonrestricted killer T cells were als o immortalized.