Virus-specific T-cells becoming a Therapeutic Product
Different strategies have been developed to enrich, isolate or purify virus-specific T-cells. For the TRACE study, the Cytokine Capture Technique was chosen due to the advantages of isolation of cytotoxic as well as T-helper cells, isolation of functional T-cell clones and of clones against known as well as unknown viral epitopes. Further this approach is available for patients and donors of all HLA-types.
In the TRACE study multivirus-specific (CMV, AdV and EBV-specific) T-cells are isolated from blood of seropositive donors by an instrument called CliniMACS® Prodigy. The CliniMACS® Prodigy allows automated manufacturing of this T-cell product for adoptive T-cell therapy via the Cytokine Capture Technique and performs all steps in a functionally closed system.
Within T-cell product manufacture, the cellular starting material is incubated with specific Cytomegalovirus (CMV), Adenovirus (AdV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antigens. As a consequence, only the virus-specific T-cells are induced to produce cytokines as they do under physiological conditions upon viral infection. These virus-specific, cytokine-secreting cells are labelled and conjugated to magnetic particles for the following enrichment using a magnetic column.