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Key Words: CTLA-4 (CD152) CD8+ T cells dendritic cells CD4+ T cells cytotoxicity
Naive T cells require two distinct signals to proliferate and differentiate into armed effector cells. Signal 1 is Ag-specific and generated by interaction of the TCR with antigenic peptide associated with MHC molecules on APC. Signal 2 is referred to as costimulatory because, while essential, it does not by itself induce any functional response in T cells. The most well characterized costimulatory signal is generated through the interaction of the T cell molecule CD28 with its ligands B7-1 and B7-2 on APC (1).
Negative costimulation also plays an important role in the regulation of T cell activation and peripheral T cell homeostasis. Interaction of B7 with cytotoxic T lymphocyte–associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4), expressed on activated T cells, mediates a negative signal that inhibits T cell proliferation (2). The importance of CTLA-4 in T cell proliferation is highlighted by the phenotype observed in CTLA-4–deficient mice, which is characterized by CD4+ T cell–driven polyclonal expansion of peripheral T cells, multiorgan lymphocytic infiltration, and death at three to four weeks of age (3–5).
In vitro, signals mediated by CTLA-4 decrease IL-2 production and IL-2 receptor expression and inhibit cell cycle progression (for review, see reference 2). In vivo, CTLA-4 signaling can be blocked by administration of anti–CTLA-4 mAb, resulting in enhanced T cell immune responses to Ag (6) or superantigen (7). Similarly, Th2-type immune responses to nematode parasite infection (8) and Th1-type immune responses to mycobacteria can be augmented by anti–CTLA-4 treatment (Kirman, J., K. McCoy, S. Hook, M. Prout, B. Delahunt, I. Orme, A. Frank, and G. Le Gros, manuscript submitted for publication), and autoimmune conditions are exacerbated (9–11). Antitumor immune responses are also augmented by preventing CTLA-4 function (12), as demonstrated by the enhanced tumor rejection in mice treated with anti–CTLA-4 mAb.
In this study, we have sought to define a potential mechanism for anti–CTLA-4–induced tumor immunity. We have reasoned that a B7-expressing cell must be involved, presenting tumor antigen and providing ligands for CTLA-4 on T cells and thus inducing incomplete or transient activation of antitumor T cells. Current understanding suggests that this cell is a dendritic cell (DC). Anti–CTLA-4 mAb may enhance the activation of Ag-specific CD8+ T cells via DC by either directly preventing the engagement of CTLA-4 on CD8+ T cells or enhancing CD4+ helper function. We find that anti–CTLA-4 treatment significantly enhances the expansion and cytotoxic activity of CD8+ T cells activated by Ag on DC and that this enhancement can occur independently of CD4+ T cell help.
In Vitro Culture Media and Reagents.
Antibodies and FACS® Staining.
In Vitro CTLA-4 Cross-linking Experiments.
Culture of Bone Marrow–derived DC and Ag Loading.
Adoptive Transfer and Immunization.
Direct Cytotoxicity Assays.
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Materials and Methods
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Abstract
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
References
Mice.
C57BL/6 mice were obtained from The Jackson Laboratory. Strain 318 TCR-transgenic mice (13) were provided by Prof. H. Pircher (University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany) and B6Aa0/Aa0 (MHC class II–/–) mice (14) by Dr. H. Blüthmann (Hoffmann-La Roche, Basel, Switzerland). All mice were bred and maintained at the Biomedical Research Unit of the Wellington School of Medicine.
Cultures were in IMDM and additives were as described (8). The lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus glycoprotein peptide KAVYNFATM (LCMV33–41) was obtained from Chiron Mimotopes. Supernatant from the cell line IL2L6 was used as a source of human rIL-2.
Anti–CTLA-4 clone UC10-4F10-11 (provided by Dr. J. Bluestone, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL), anti-CD3 (145-2C11), anti-CD28 (37.51), anti-CD8 (2.43), anti-CD4 (GK1.5), anti-CD11c (N418), anti-Fc
RII (2.4G2), anti-Vβ8.1/8.2 (KJ16.133.18), and anti-CD44 (I42/5) were affinity purified from culture supernatants using protein G–Sepharose (Pharmacia Biotech) and conjugated to FITC or biotin. Anti-V
2–PE mAb and streptavidin–Cy-Chrome were obtained from PharMingen. Control IgG was affinity purified from hamster serum using protein G–Sepharose. Cells were stained in PBS containing 2% FCS and 0.01% sodium azide as described (15).
Lymph node cell suspensions were layered onto a Percoll gradient (Pharmacia Biotech AB) and the high density cells taken from the interface of 60 and 70% Percoll layers. CD4+ and Ig+ cells were depleted by treatment with anti-CD4 mAb followed by anti-Ig magnetic bead adherence (Dynal A.S.). The remaining cell suspension contained 95% CD8+ T cells, with no detectable CD4+ T cells and <2% B220+ cells. For cross-linking experiments, 105 resting CD8+-enriched cells were cultured with 105 polystyrene beads coated with anti-CD3 and either anti–CTLA-4 or control IgG in the presence or absence of soluble anti-CD28 as described (16). Control cultures were provided with 50 U/ml human rIL-2. Proliferation was determined by 3H-TdR incorporation over the last 8 h of a 72-h culture.
Bone marrow cells from C57BL/6 mice or MHC class II–/– mice were cultured in 20 ng/ml IL-4 and 20 ng/ml GM-CSF for 6–8 d as described (17). Cultures typically contained 90–100% DC as determined by FACS® staining with anti-CD11c mAb. DC were loaded with Ag by incubation in medium containing 10 µM LCMV33–41 for 2 h.
Lymph node cell suspensions were prepared from line 318 mice, and the percentage of T cells expressing transgenic TCR was determined by flow cytometry using anti-TCR V
2 and anti-TCR Vβ8.1/8.2 mAb. The equivalent of 3–5 x 106 V
2+Vβ8+ T cells were injected intravenously into C57BL/6 recipients, and on the same day, mice were given an intraperitoneal injection of 1 mg anti–CTLA-4 mAb or control IgG. 1 d later, recipients were immunized by subcutaneous injection of 105 LCMV33–41 peptide–loaded DC or untreated DC in IMDM. For each experiment, a group of adoptive transfer recipients was left unmanipulated to serve as a control. For experiments in MHC class II–/– recipients, the donor cell preparations were depleted of CD4+ and Ig+ cells as described above.
C57BL/6 mice received TCR-transgenic T cells, were treated with anti–CTLA-4 or control IgG, and were immunized with 3 x 104 DC as described above. 7 d after DC immunization, splenocytes were harvested, depleted of CD4+ and Ig+ cells, and tested for cytotoxic activity in vitro by JAM test on 5,000 labeled EL4 cells that had been incubated in the presence or absence of 1 µM LCMV33–41 peptide for 1 h at 37°C before the assay (18). All cultures were performed in triplicate.
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Results
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Abstract
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
References
CTLA-4 Mediates a Negative Regulatory Signal to Purified CD8+ T Cells In Vitro.
We used anti–CTLA-4 mAb conjugated to polystyrene beads to examine the effect of CTLA-4 cross-linking on the activation and proliferation of purified resting CD8+ T cells in culture. Lymphocyte preparations from line 318 TCR-transgenic mice were depleted of CD4+ and Ig+ cells using Ab-coated magnetic beads. Enriched CD8+ T cells were cultured with beads coated with either anti-CD3 and anti–CTLA-4 or anti-CD3 and control IgG in the presence of a positive costimulatory signal provided by soluble anti-CD28. As shown in Fig. 1 A, after 24 h both control Ab–treated and anti– CTLA-4–treated cultures contained activated CD8+ T cells with markedly increased expression of the activation markers CD25 and CD69 as compared to resting cells. However, whereas expression of these activation markers was maintained until after 48 h in control cultures, it was rapidly lost in the presence of anti–CTLA-4. No increase in cell death was apparent in anti–CTLA-4–treated cultures as compared to control cultures (data not shown). Proliferation of CD8+ T cells in these cultures was assayed 64–72 h after activation (Fig. 1 B). In the presence of anti-CD28, control cultures were highly activated and showed significant levels of proliferation. In contrast, cross-linking of CTLA-4 with mAb-conjugated beads completely inhibited proliferation. The inhibitory function of anti–CTLA-4 was overridden by addition of exogenous IL-2. Therefore, the proliferative function of CD8+ T cells can be directly inhibited by signals mediated via CTLA-4. Similar results have been reported by Walunas et al. using CD8+ T cells from the TCR-transgenic strain 2C (19).
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2+Vβ8+CD8+ phenotype. Anti– CTLA-4 mAb or control IgG was administered intraperitoneally at the time of adoptive transfer, followed by DC loaded with LCMV33–41 peptide on day 1. Control animals received either DC that had not been loaded with Ag or no DC immunization at all. Activation and accumulation of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ T cells in the draining lymph nodes were examined on day 5 after immunization, as preliminary experiments showed that both responses were maximal on this day (data not shown). The data in Fig. 2 are presented as fold increase in the total number of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ T cells in immunized mice over the number of the same cells in animals that were not immunized. This is because the fold increase in V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ T cells was reproducible in different experiments, whereas the absolute cell number varied. In control IgG–treated animals, an average 2.4-fold increase in the number of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ T cells was observed in response to Ag-loaded DC, whereas immunization with DC without Ag failed to induce any increase. Significantly, when animals were treated with anti–CTLA-4 mAb, the Ag-induced accumulation was greater, with an average sixfold increase observed. This reflected both an increase in the proportion of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ T cells and an increase in the total number of lymph node cells (twofold). Immunization with Ag-loaded DC induced increased CD44 expression on a significant proportion of V
2+Vβ8+ T cells, and this proportion was greatly increased in animals treated with anti–CTLA-4 mAb (Fig. 2). Importantly, increased CD44 expression was strictly Ag dependent and was not detected on cells not expressing the V
2+Vβ8+ receptor. Interestingly, a twofold increase in the cellularity of the draining lymph node, with no increase in the percentage of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ cells, was observed in mice treated with anti–CTLA-4 and immunized with DC only, resulting in an increase in the absolute number of V
2+Vβ8+ cells. The increased cellularity was immunization related, as it was not observed in nondraining lymph nodes. No increased expression of CD44 or other activation markers was observed on these V
2+Vβ8+ cells (not shown), indicating that blockade of CTLA-4 signals was not sufficient to induce T cell activation in the absence of Ag. Taken together, these results suggest that inhibition of CTLA-4–mediated signaling results in enhanced Ag-specific proliferation of CD8+ T cells in vivo.
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As shown in Fig. 3, immunization with MHC class II–/– DC loaded with LCMV33–41 peptide induced selective accumulation of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ T cells in the draining lymph nodes of MHC class II+/+ and MHC Class II–/– mice. More importantly, treatment with anti–CTLA-4 mAb significantly enhanced the accumulation of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ T cells (Fig. 3) and their expression of CD44 (not shown), regardless of the expression of MHC class II on host APC. Again, as for Fig. 2, treatment with anti–CTLA-4 caused an increase in the cellularity of the draining lymph node in mice immunized with DC only; however, the percentage of V
2+Vβ8+CD8+ cells was not increased compared to controls nor was their expression of activation markers altered. These results suggest that the enhanced accumulation of V
2+Vβ8+ T cells observed with anti–CTLA-4 treatment in DC-immunized mice is not dependent on the provision of CD4+ T cell help. We conclude that CD8+ T cells can be directly regulated in vivo by signals mediated via CTLA-4 molecules.
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2+Vβ8+ cells (data not shown). These results indicate that CTLA-4–mediated signals regulate the cytotoxic activity of CD8+ T cells, also in the absence of CD4+ help.
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We investigated whether anti–CTLA-4 enhanced the activity of CD8+ T cells directly or by increasing the availability of CD4+ T cell help. To this purpose, we carried out experiments in which the potential contribution of CD4+ T cells to the CD8+ T cell response was progressively reduced. We observed augmented CD8+ T cell responses regardless of the availability of CD4+ T cells, indicating that CD4+ T cells were not critical to the observed effect. As also reported by Walunas et al. (19), a purified cell culture system confirmed that CD8+ T cells could respond directly to CTLA-4–mediated signals in vitro. However, although it is clear that the effects of anti–CTLA-4 we have observed are independent of CD4+ T cell help, CD4+ T cells are thought to be necessary for the activation of DC and for the productive development of a CD8+ T cell response (20). Because we could observe good CD8+ T cell responses even in the absence of CD4+ T cells, we must conclude that our DC were sufficiently activated before injection to be able to induce good CD8+ T cell priming.
The findings reported in this paper are relevant to the described enhancement of tumor immunity induced by in vivo treatment with anti–CTLA-4 mAb (12). Treatment with anti–CTLA-4 mAb in vivo is thought to block the delivery of a negative signal, mediated by B7 ligands on B7-expressing cells. Because tumor cells are generally B7–, a third cell type must be providing B7 in this system. Bone marrow–derived APC, presumably DC, have been reported to take up and present self Ag (21) as well as tumor Ag (22) from peripheral tissues in physiological situations. We thus hypothesized that tumor immunity induced by anti–CTLA-4 treatment is most likely due to enhanced T cell activation by tumor antigen presented by DC. In this paper, we show that both CD8+ T cell activation and specific cytotoxic activity induced by immunization with DC are amplified in the presence of anti–CTLA-4 mAb, possibly resulting in the tumor immunity described by Leach et al. (12). Our results also imply that tumors in which Ag fails to gain access to a DC, because of either poor antigenicity or limited DC presence in the tumor, may fail to respond to anti–CTLA-4 treatment. Conversely, manipulations which increase local inflammation and therefore access of tumor Ag to DC (23), or tumor vaccination procedures, could become more effective if used in combination with anti–CTLA-4 treatment (24).
As in the case of CTLA-4–deficient mice (25), we could observe no spontaneous T cell activation in the absence of Ag when CTLA-4 signaling was blocked. Surprisingly, however, we observed that lymph node cellularity was increased by anti–CTLA-4 treatment even after immunization with DC only. This increase was restricted to the draining lymph nodes, indicating that it was immunization related. DC have been reported to induce Ca2+ responses in T cells in the absence of Ag (26). This low level of stimulation may be amplified by the removal of CTLA-4 signals.
In conclusion, blockade of CTLA-4 directly enhances the ability of CD8+ T cells to respond to Ag presented on DC, amplifying their expansion and accumulation in lymphoid organs and their cytotoxic activity. This finding may help explain the antitumor effect of anti–CTLA-4 mAb treatment, and, if extended to CD4+ T cells, the autoimmune phenotype observed in CTLA-4–deficient mice.
| Acknowledgments |
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This work was supported by grants from the Cancer Society of New Zealand and an equipment grant from the New Zealand Lottery Board. J.H. Fraser is the New Zealand Cancer Research Institute Trust Scholar, G. Le Gros is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, and F. Ronchese is recipient of a Wellington Medical Research Foundation Malaghan Senior Fellowship.
Submitted: 21 September 1998
Revised: 27 January 1999
K.D. McCoy and I.F. Hermans contributed equally to this study.
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