GMP-Compliant Flow Cytometric Cell Sorting Of Antigen-Specific T Cells

Adoptive T cell therapy has proven to be a promising strategy for treatment of a variety of malignancies. Exploitation of this potent therapeutic approach increases the need for easy and effective isolation of antigen-specific T cells in compliance with GMP cell manufacturing requirements.

Antigen-specific T cells can be identified and purified after ex vivo stimulation using the activation marker CD137 (4-1BB). However, CD137 is also expressed in a number of other immune cells like B cells, dendritic cells, and monocytes, which hampers the isolation of antigen-specific T cells based solely on this marker. Moreover, the presence of CD137+ regulatory T cells could inhibit an effective expansion of antigen-specific T cells after enrichment.

Here, we demonstrate the generation of large numbers of CD8+CD137+ antigen-specific T cells with high purity based on GMP-compatible reagents and sorting system.