Hairy cell leukemia-specific recognition by multiple autologous HLA-DQ or DP-restricted T-cell clones

We studied in patients with hairy cell leukemia (HCL) whether autoreactive T cells could be isolated with specific reactivity to the HCL cells. HCL ce lls were activated via triggering of CD40 on the cell membrane and used as stimulator cells to generate autologous T-cell clones. Two types of CD4(+)B V2(+) T-cell clones with different CDR3 rearrangements and one type of CD4( +)BV8S3(+) T-cell clone were generated from the spleen or blood. These clon es specifically recognized the autologous HCL cells, without reactivity to autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), phytohemagglutinin bl asts, or Epstein-Barr virus-transformed B cells in a primed lymphocyte test . Blocking and panel studies using HCL cells from 11 other patients showed that recognition of the HCL cells by the BV2(+) T cells was restricted by H LA-DQA1*03/DQB1*0301, and the BV8S3(+) T cells were restricted by DPB1*04. The T-cell clones did not recognize DPB1*04(+) or DQ3(+) PBMC from healthy donors or DP/DQ matched malignant cells from patients with other hematologi c malignancies, except for one patient with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. T hese HCL-specific T-cell clones may be used for the detection of an HCL-spe cific tumor antigen. (C) 1999 by The American Society of Hematology.