In Vivo Murine-Matured Human CD3(+) Cells as a Preclinical Model for T Cell-Based Immunotherapies

Adoptive cellular immunotherapy is a promising and powerful method for the treatment of a broad range of malignant and infectious diseases. Although the concept of cellular immunotherapy was originally proposed in the 1990s, it has not seen successful clinical application until recent years. Despite significant progress in creating engineered receptors against both malignant and viral epitopes, no efficient preclinical animal models exist for rapidly testing and directly comparing these engineered receptors. The use of matured human T cells in mice usually leads to graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), which severely limits the effectiveness of such studies. Alternatively, adult apheresis CD34(+) cells engraft in neonatal non-obese diabetic (NOD)-severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID)-common γ chain(–/–) (NSG) mice and lead to the development of CD3(+) T cells in peripheral circulation. We demonstrate that these in vivo murine-matured autologous CD3(+) T cells from humans (MATCH) can be collected from the mice, engineered with lentiviral vectors, reinfused into the mice, and detected in multiple lymphoid compartments at stable levels over 50 days after injection. Unlike autologous CD3(+) cells collected from human donors, these MATCH mice did not exhibit GvHD after T cell administration. This novel mouse model offers the opportunity to screen different immunotherapy-based treatments in a preclinical setting.