Life or Death of T Cells with Antigen-Specific Receptors - Using T Cells for Cancer Adoptive Immunotherapy / Gene Therapy

A promising strategy for cancer treatment is adoptive gene therapy / immunotherapy by genetically modifying T lymphocytes with a chimeric receptor (ch-TCR) so that cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) can target and lyse tumors in a MHC-non-restricted manner. It is, however, not clear whether non-MHC-restricted tumor cell recognition by T cells will result in activation- induced apoptosis (AICD). This review discusses the factors that affect the development of AICD or CTL proliferation, and how such factors should be considered in the design of clinical trials using ch-TCR.