Abstract
Trupti Vardam-Kaur1, Latha B. Pathangey1, Daniel J. McCormick2, P. Leif Bergsagel3, Peter A. Cohen1,3,* and Sandra J. Gendler1,2,3
1 Department of Immunology, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
2 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ/Rochester, MN, USA
3 Department of Hematology and Oncology, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
* Deceased
Correspondence to:
Sandra J. Gendler, | email: | gendler.sandra@mayo.edu |
Keywords: multiple myeloma; cellular therapy; CD4/CD8 T cells; peptides; immunotherapy
Received: June 23, 2021 Accepted: August 13, 2021 Published: September 28, 2021
ABSTRACT
Multiple Myeloma (MM) patients suffer disease relapse due to the development of therapeutic resistance. Increasing evidence suggests that immunotherapeutic strategies can provide durable responses. Here we evaluate the possibility of adoptive cell transfer (ACT) by generating ex vivo T cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from MM patients by employing our previously devised protocols. We designed peptides from antigens (Ags) including cancer testis antigens (CTAs) that are over expressed in MM. We exposed PBMCs from different healthy donors (HDs) to single peptides. We observed reproducible Ag-specific cluster of differentiation 4+ (CD4+) and CD8+ T cell responses on exposure of PBMCs to different single peptide sequences. These peptide sequences were used to compile four different peptide cocktails. Naïve T cells from PBMCs from MM patients or HDs recognized the cognate Ag in all four peptide cocktails, leading to generation of multiclonal Ag-specific CD4+ and CD8+ effector and central memory T (TEM and TCM, respectively) cells which produced interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), granzyme B and perforin on secondary restimulation. Furthermore, this study demonstrated that immune cells from MM patients are capable of switching metabolic programs to induce effector and memory responses. Multiple peptides and cocktails were identified that induce IFN-γ+, T1-type, metabolically active T cells, thereby paving the way for feasibility testing of ACT in phase I clinical trials.