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76th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

04.05. - 08.05.2005, Erfurt

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Increased Rates of Spontaneous Apoptosis in Tumor-Specific Tetramer+CD8+ T Lymphocytes in the Peripheral Circulation

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  • corresponding author Andreas Albers - HNO-Universitätsklinik Lübeck, Lübeck
  • Carsten Schaefer - HNO-Universitätsklinik Mannheim
  • Robert Ferris - University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
  • Barbara Wollenberg - HNO-Universitätsklinik Lübeck, Lübeck
  • Albert DeLeo - University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
  • Theresa Whiteside - University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie. 76. Jahresversammlung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie e.V.. Erfurt, 04.-08.05.2005. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2005. Doc05hno464

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/hno2005/05hno144.shtml

Published: September 22, 2005

© 2005 Albers et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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In the circulation of cancer patients T-cells undergo spontaneous apoptosis at a high rate. It is so far unknown, whether these cells are tumor-specific. The objective of our study was to investigate if tumor-specific CD8+ T-cells of patients with SCCHN undergo preferential apoptosis. The peripheral blood lymphocytes of 14 HLA-A2+ Patients were analysed by 4-color-flowcytometry. Frequencies of p53264-272 or p53149-157 CD8+ Tetramer+ T-cells were in the range of 1/776-1/7805. In two cases, frequencies were much higher for p53149-157 Tetramer+ T-cells at a frequency of 1/776 and 1/1006 respectively. Our results further show that a majority of the CD8+ Tetramer+ T-cells are AnnexinV+. 25-95% of the CD8+ Tetramer+ T-cells were AnnexinV+ while only 6-40% of the CD8+ T-cells were apoptotic. The fact that CD8+ Tetramer+ T-cells preferentially bind AnnexinV supports the conclusion that tumor-specific CD8+ T-cells are determined to undergo apoptosis. The increased turnover of tumor-specific T-cells shows the negative influence of SCCHN on the immunologic homeostasis. Our results imply that a specific mechanism is responsible for this phenomenon since tumor-specific T-cells undergo apoptosis at higher rates than the main CD8+ T-cell population. This observation is one more piece of evidence for the negative effects that cancer exerts on the immune system.