Therapeutic advantages provided by banked virus-specific T-cells of defined HLA-restriction.

Overview

We have developed banks of EBV and CMV-specific T-cell lines generated from healthy seropositive third party donors and characterized them as to their HLA type, virus specificity, lack of alloreactivity, and HLA restriction. We here summarize results of studies employing these immediately accessible, broadly-applicable third party virus-specific T-cells for adoptive therapy of EBV lymphomas and CMV infections in allo-HCT recipients. We describe the characteristics contributing to their safety. We also discuss several distinctive advantages of banked third party virus-specific T-cells selected on the basis of their HLA restriction, particularly in the treatment of Rituximab-non-responsive EBV⁺ lymphomas and drug refractory CMV infections complicating HLA non-identical transplants.