Chronic myelogenous leukemia shapes host immunity by selective deletion of high-avidity leukemia-specific T cells
J. Clin. Invest. Jeffrey J. Molldrem, et al. 111:639 doi:10.1172/JCI16398 [Go to this article.]

Figure 3
Only low-avidity PR1-specific CTLs are elicited from peripheral blood of CML patients. PBMCs from three different HLA-A2⁺ CML patients were stimulated weekly with PR1-pulsed T2 cells with PR1 ranging from 0.002 μM to 200 μM. After 4 weeks, resultant cultures were stained with CD8 Ab and PR1/HLA-A2 tetramer and analyzed by FACS. The percentage of CD8⁺ cells that stain with relevant tetramer is indicated within each FACS plot. (a) Cultures elicited with 0.2 μM, 0.02 μM, and 0.002 μM PR1 resulted in CTLs with lower-intensity tetramer staining than CTLs from healthy donors elicited with similar doses of PR1. (b) PBMCs from an untreated chronic phase CML patient (CML no. 4) were studied weekly prior to restimulation with PR1-pulsed T2 cells with PR1/HLA-A2 tetramer. Only PR1-specific CTLs with low-intensity tetramer staining emerge over the 4 weeks, and no relatively high tetramer intensity CTLs are present. (c) PBMCs from CML no. 2 stimulated weekly with 0.2 μM pp65 peptide elicited CTLs with high-intensity pp65/HLA-A2 tetramer staining after 4 weeks in culture.