Regeneration of tumor antigen-specific CTLs utilizing iPS technology

Abstract

Tumor immunotherapy, especially tumor antigen specific T cell therapy, is currently attracting attention. However, a critical issue still awaits resolution; it is difficult to efficiently expand tumor antigen-specific T cells. To solve this problem, we are now utilizing iPS cell technology. When iPS cells are established from tumor antigen specific T cells, T cells regenerated from these iPS cells are expected to express the same TCRs as the original T cells. In line with this concept, we succeeded in regenerating tumor antigen specific cytotoxic T cells. The regenerated T cells exhibited TCR specific killing activity comparable to that of the original cells, and were able to kill leukemia cells in an antigen-specific manner. We are currently endeavoring to apply this method clinically. In the future, we intend to establish an allogeneic transfusion system, in which various tumor antigen specific T-iPS cells from a wide range of HLA haplotype homozygous donors will be lined up as a "T-iPS cell bank", with the aim of making off-the-shelf tumor immunotherapy a reality.