Long-term expansion and cytotoxic activity of re-stimulated EBV lytic epitope-specific CD45RA⁺ and CD45RO⁺CD8⁺ T cells.

CD8⁺, CD45RA⁺ and CD8⁺, CD45RO⁺ T-cell subsets were enriched from PBMCs of an HLA-A2 donor by negative selection. CD45 isoform expression of these specific cells was determined before and after 3 weeks of stimulation with irradiated APC pulsed with the GLC lytic peptide epitope. Activated cells were supplemented with IL-2 every 3 to 4 days. Cytotoxic activity of the expanded populations was tested against⁵¹Cr-labeled GLC peptide-pulsed PHA blast target cells. Similar results were obtained in a second identical experiment.