Generation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Cultures for Use in Adoptive Transfer Therapy for Melanoma Patients

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. Multiple independent TIL derived from a single tumor often exhibited substantial functional and phenotypic variation. Tumor specific activity was detected in TIL from 29 (81%) of 36…