AUTOLOGOUS TUMOR-CELL KILLING ACTIVITY OF TUMOR-ASSOCIATED LYMPHOCYTES IN PATIENTS WITH HEAD AND NECK CARCINOMAS

In order to select the most cytotoxic effector cells for adoptive immu notherapy, lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and autologous mixed lymphocyte tumor cell culture (MLTC) cells derived from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) i n the same subject with head and neck carcinomas were prepared. The au tologous tumor cell killing activity and cell surface phenotypes of ea ch of the three effector cells were studied. MLTC cells cultured with interleukin-2 (IL-2) showed the strongest cytotoxic activity among the se three different effector cells. Although TILs had suppressed killin g activity immediately after isolation, after successive cultivations with IL-2, a cytotoxic activity against autologous tumor cells stronge r than that of LAK cells appeared. Both IL-2 stimulated MLTC cells and TILs showed an enrichment of CD8 positive and CD11 negative cells in a CD3 positive subpopulation.