%A Jizhou Lv, Ning Tao, Hao Wu, Xiaoman Liu, Xia Xu, Yingxin Xu, Zhihai Qin %T Selective expansion and enhanced anti-tumor effect of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells by retrovirus-mediated IL-15 expression %0 Journal Article %D 2011 %J Protein Cell %J Protein & Cell %@ 1674-800X %R 10.1007/s13238-011-1080-8 %P 585-599 %V 2 %N 7 %U {https://journal.hep.com.cn/pac/EN/10.1007/s13238-011-1080-8 %8 2011-07-01 %X
Mounting evidence has demonstrated that CD4+ T cells play an important role in anti-tumor immune responses. Thus, adoptive transfer of these cells may have great potential for anti-cancer therapy. However, due to the difficulty to generate sufficient tumor-specific CD4+ T cells, the use of CD4+ T cells in tumor therapy is limited. It has been found that IL-15 transfection enhances the proliferation and anti-tumor activity of tumor-specific CD8+ T cells, but the effect of IL-15 transfection on CD4+ T cells remains unknown. Here, the effects of retrovirus-mediated IL-15 expression in Ova-specific CD4+ T cells from Do11.10 mice were evaluated and it was discovered that IL-15 transfected CD4+ T cells expressed both soluble and membrane-bound IL-15. Retrovirus-mediated IL-15 expression led to a selective expansion of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells by inhibiting their apoptosis.