Correlation between class I antigen expression and the ability to generate tumour infiltrating lymphocytes from bladder tumour biopsies

Abstract

Analysis of tissue sections from transurethrally resected bladder tumours using anti-CD3 antibody showed the presence of T lymphocytes in intra-epithelial layers in eight of 12 cases investigated. In a larger group of patients, Tumour Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) growth was established from six of 19 cases using Interleukin-2 (IL-2) and conditioned medium (CM) and resulted in the expansion of TILs up to 100-fold. TILs from these individuals were phenotyped with W6/32 (anti-HLA-A,B,C), HB55 (anti-DR) and anti-CD3 antibodies using FAC sorter. The mean +/- s.d. frequency of positive staining with these antibodies were 96.7 +/- 4.0%, 87.5 +/- 10.0% and 82.5 +/- 7.8% respectively, indicating the activated nature of these T cells. The cytotoxic activity of these TILs against Daudi (ie, LAK activity) cell line at 25/1 E/T ratios varied from 26.3 +/- 3.2 to 62.8 +/- 5.2%. In one case where TILs and autologous tumour cell line were established, cytotoxicity studies showed low level of cytotoxicity against the autologous tumour cells (15.8 +/- 1.6%) compared with 62.8 +/- 5.2% against Daudi. Staining of tumour sections from these 19 individuals with W6/32 and BBM.1 revealed positive staining in six of six that developed TILs but only six of 13 (46%) cases, whose tumour failed to grow TILs (P less than 0.02, Fisher exact test). These results are indicative of the presence of IL-2 passageable T cells in bladder cancer biopsy and demonstrate that the successful expansion of these cells correlates with the normal expression of class I antigens on the tumour cells.