Generation of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte cultures for use in adoptive transfer therapy for melanoma patients

ME Dudley, JR Wunderlich, TE Shelton… - Journal of …, 2003 - journals.lww.com
The generation of T lymphocytes with specific reactivity against tumor antigens is a
prerequisite for effective adoptive transfer therapies. Melanoma-specific lymphocyte cultures
can be established from tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) by in vitro culture in high levels
of IL-2. We have optimized methods for generating melanoma-reactive TIL cultures from
small resected tumor specimens. We report a retrospective analysis of 860 attempted TIL
cultures from 90 sequential melanoma biopsy specimens from 62 HLA-A2+ patients …