Autologous leukemia-specific T-cell-mediated lymphocytotoxicity in patients with acute myelogenous leukemia.

Abstract

Short-term culture of acute myelogenous leukemia patient''s remission lymphocytes with inactivated autologous leukemic blast cells plus allogeneic lymphocytes, generated effector T [thymus derived] lymphocytes which were cytotoxic for the specific autologous blast cell in 11 of 14 patients studied. Experiments using [human Burkitt lymphoma] Daudi and Molt 4 lymphoblastoid cell lines as a 3rd-party helper cell suggest that an HLA D locus incompatability is necessary to provide effective help in this system. Cold target inhibition experiments, crossover studies between pairs of patients and experiments with allogeneic leukemic blast cells as a priming stimulus suggest that the target antigen is only present on the specific autologous blast cell.