Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Immunotherapy

Isolation of TCM cells for tumour immunotherapy

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 12, pages 656–657 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Animal studies have suggested that TCM cells can survive long-term after adoptive transfer. Human TCM cells have been reported to produce more interleukin-2 (IL-2) and less interferon-γ (IFNγ) than effector memory T cells (TEM cells), and so the authors hypothesized that these cell populations could be identified on the basis of their relative production of these cytokines. Indeed, a high IL2/IFNG mRNA ratio in peripheral blood cells following short-term T cell stimulation correlated with the TCM cell phenotype.

Using a previously described high-throughput method to screen for tumour-specific CD8+ T cells, rare tumour-specific TCM cells were isolated from patients with melanoma on the basis of their high IL2/IFNG mRNA ratio. Effector T cell clones generated from tumour-specific TEM cells (which have a low IL2/IFNG mRNA ratio) or from TCM cells had similar cytolytic activities, but TCM cell-derived T cell clones had a distinct gene expression profile associated with cell survival.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Wang, A. et al. The stoichiometric production of IL-2 and IFN-γ mRNA defines memory T cells that can self-renew after adoptive transfer in humans. Sci. Transl Med. 4, 149ra120 (2012)

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

FURTHER READING

  1. Gattinoni, L., Klebanoff, C. A. & Restifo, N. P. Paths to stemness: building the ultimate antitumour T cell. Nature Rev. Cancer 12, 671–684 (2012)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Acting Chief Editor, Nature Reviews Immunology,

    Olive Leavy

Authors
  1. Olive Leavy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Leavy, O. Isolation of TCM cells for tumour immunotherapy. Nat Rev Cancer 12, 656–657 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3364

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc3364

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing