This white paper introduces a highly translational, preclinical in vitro platform developed by Charles River that utilizes antigen specific T cells to evaluate the efficacy of cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory therapeutics. The system tackles key challenges including low T cell precursor frequency and restrictive HLA type requirements by offering a highly customizable platform, including:
- HLA-specific, dendritic cell (DC) co-culture systems for realistic and physiologically relevant expansion of naive T cells.
- The option for multimer-based isolation and expansion of rare, antigen-specific CD8 T cells.
- Assessment of the anti-tumor efficacy of expanded T cells using antigen-specific tumor killing assays (TKAs).
Actionable Data for Smarter Vaccine or Immunotherapy Development
The platform has been validated using the well-established Mart-1 tumor-associated antigen (TAA) but can be used to investigate novel targets, including neoantigens, peptide-based antigens for immune expansion or mRNA/DNA encoded antigens that can be transfected into DCs, or other antigen-presenting cells. Using our system, the relative immunogenicity of an antigen can be measured, allowing for the discovery of novel targets, and the ranking of novel targets for their immunogenicity.
With the rise of cancer vaccines and T cell–driven immunotherapies, this platform offers a physiologically relevant, scalable, and customizable solution to support drug discovery and accelerate translation to the clinic.
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