A hybrid of B and T lymphoblastic cell line could potentially substitute dendritic cells to efficiently expand out Her-2/neu-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes from advanced breast cancer patients in vitro

Adoptive transfer of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) holds promises to cure cancer. However, this treatment is hindered by lacking a robust way to specifically expand out CTLs. Here, we developed a hybrid of B lymphoblastic cell line and T lymphoblastic cell line (T2 cells) as a substitute of dendritic cells, together with irradiated autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) as feeder cells and rhIL-2, to activate and expand Her-2/neu-specific CD8(+) T cells from human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her-2/neu) and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A2 double positive advanced breast cancer patients in vitro. These Her-2/neu-loaded T2 cells reproducibly activated and expanded out Her-2/neu-specific CD8(+) T cells to 10(7) in 8 weeks. Furthermore, these Her-2/neu-specific CD8(+) T cells had good sensitivity of recognition and killing Her-2/neu-overexpressed breast cancer cell line SK.BR.3. This technique gives us another insight on how to rapidly obtain sufficient CTLs for adoptive cancer immunotherapy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13045-017-0429-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.