Phenotypic analysis of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes from non-small cell lung cancer and their potential application for adoptive cell therapy

Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) has demonstrated clinical benefits in metastatic melanoma treatment. However, the clinical application of TILs produced by a widely used standard protocol from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) can be quite challenging because of the limited clinical benefits. A comprehensive phenotypic knowledge of TILs obtained from NSCLC is important for the development and improvement of personalized TIL therapy for NSCLC patients.

In this study, we successfully expanded TILs from 141 NSCLC tissues which can be used in clinical ACT after expansion by a rapid expansion protocol (REP).

Our study indicates that the clinicopathological characteristics of patients have considerable impacts on the phenotype of in vitro TIL culture products. Different culture conditions are necessary for patients with different clinical features. Specific manipulations before REP expansion are required depending on the different phenotypes of TIL cultures (e.g. depletion of immune-suppressive γδT cells). With these optimizations, next-generation TIL therapy may become a treatment alternative for NSCLC patients in the future.