[The proliferation, phenotype change and anti-tumor activity of cytokine induced killer cells]

Abstract

Aim: To study the growth regularity, the phenotype change and the cytotoxicity of CIK cells.

Methods: The number of CIK cells was counted by living cell counting in different culturing time to observe the growth of the CIK cells, and the phenotype change of the CIK cells was detected by flow cytometry. Meanwhile cytotoxicity of CIK cells to tumor cell lines was also detected by CytoTox96 non-radiated cytotoxicity kit.

Results: After stimulated by cytokines and anti-CD3 antibody, CIK cells can proliferate significantly. The cell number of CIK was increased to 473.28+/-27.53 fold in serum-free medium plus auto-serum, 218.24+/-16.86 fold in serum-free medium and only 11.52+/-1.04 fold in RPMI1640 plus fetal FCS, respectively. The CD3(+)+CD8(+), CD3(+)+CD56(+), CD226(+)+CD11a(+) and CD305(+)+CD11a(+) cells were increased with the progression of the cultural time and the CD3(+)+CD4(+) cells were decreased with the progression of cultural time. The cytotoxicity of CIK cells to tumor cell lines was significantly higher than that of LAK cells (P<0.01) and its cytotoxicity was increased with progression of the cultural time.

Conclusion: CIK cells have strong proliferative ability and higher cytotoxicity to tumor cells in vitro, which could be used as a potential anti-tumor adoptive immunotherapy in clinic.