P. Szabolcs et al., RETROVIRALLY TRANSDUCED HUMAN DENDRITIC CELLS EXPRESS A NORMAL PHENOTYPE AND POTENT T-CELL STIMULATORY CAPACITY, Blood, 90(6), 1997, pp. 2160-2167
Dendritic cells are attractive candidates for vaccine-based immunother
apy because of their potential to function as natural adjuvants for po
orly immunogenic proteins derived from tumors or microbes. In this stu
dy, we evaluated the feasibility and consequences of introducing forei
gn genetic material by retroviral vectors into dendritic cell progenit
ors. Proliferating human bone marrow and cord blood CD34(+) cells were
infected by retroviral vectors encoding the murine CD2 surface antige
n. Mean transduction efficiency in dendritic cells was 11.5% from bone
marrow and 21.2% from cord blood progenitors. Transduced or untransdu
ced dendritic cell progeny expressed comparable levels of HLA-DR, CD83
, CD1a, CD80, CD86, S100, and p55 antigens. Granulocytes, macrophages,
and dendritic cells were equally represented among the transduced and
mock-transduced cells, thus showing no apparent alteration in the dif
ferentiation of transduced CD34(+) precursors, The T cell stimulatory
capacity of retrovirally modified and purified mCD2-positive allogenei
c or nominal antigen-pulsed autologous dendritic cells was comparable
with that of untransduced dendritic cells, Human CD34(+) dendritic cel
l progenitors can therefore be efficiently transduced using retroviral
vectors and can differentiate into potent immunostimulatory dendritic
cells without compromising their T-cell stimulatory capacity or the e
xpression of critical costimulatory molecules and phenotypic markers,
These results support ongoing efforts to develop genetically modified
dendritic cells for immunotherapy. (C) 1997 by The American Society of
Hematology.