FEASIBILITY OF CELLULAR ADOPTIVE IMMUNOTHERAPY FOR EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS-ASSOCIATED LYMPHOMAS USING HAPLOIDENTICAL DONORS

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated lymphomas following bone marrow or solid organ transplantation are often sensitive to immunomodulatory t herapies. These have included withdrawal or reduction in immunosuppres sive therapy in the solid organ transplant setting and adoptive cellul ar therapies in the bone marrow transplant (BMT) setting. We describe a strategy for generating EBV-specific cytotoxic T cell therapy lines with substantial killing activity against haploidentical targets. Week ly stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) for 3 wee ks with the irradiated cells of an autologous EBV-transformed B lympho blastoid cell line (B-LCL), followed by stimulation in the presence of IL-2, yielded T cell lines that were cytolytic for haploidentical B-L CLs but did not lyse haploidentical targets not expressing EBV antigen s.