Rapid high efficiency sensitization of CD8⁺ T cells to tumor antigens by dendritic cells leads to enhanced functional avidity and direct tumor recognition through an IL-12-dependent mechanism

Myeloid-origin dendritic cells (DCs) can develop into IL-12-secreting DC1 or non-IL-12-secreting DC2 depending on signals received during maturation. Through rapid culture techniques that prepared either mature, CD83⁺ DC1 or DC2 from CD14⁺ monocytes in only 2 days followed by a single 6-7 day DC-T cell coculture, we sensitized normal donor CD8⁺ T cells to tumor Ags (HER-2/neu, MART-1, and gp100) such that peptide Ag-specific lymphocytes constituted up to 16% of the total CD8⁺ population. Both DC1 and DC2 could sensitize CD8⁺ T cells that recognized peptide-pulsed target cells. However, with DC2, a general decoupling was observed between recognition of peptide-pulsed T2 target cells and recognition of Ag-expressing tumor cells, with peptide-sensitized T cells responding to tumor only about 15% of the time. In contrast, direct recognition of tumor by T cells was dramatically increased (to 85%) when DC1 were used for sensitization. Enhanced tumor recognition was accompanied by 10- to 100-fold increases in peptide sensitivity and elevated expression of CD8β, characteristic of high functional avidity T cells. Both of these properties were IL-12-dependent. These results demonstrate the utility of rapid DC culture methods for high efficiency in vitro T cell sensitization that achieves robust priming and expansion of Ag-specific populations in 6 days. They also demonstrate a novel function of IL-12, which is enhancement of CD8⁺ T cell functional avidity. A new approach to DC-based vaccines that emphasizes IL-12 secretion to enhance functional avidity and concomitant tumor recognition by CD8⁺ T cells is indicated.