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Lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells were induced from C57BL/6 mouse spleen cells and the effects of culture time on the expression of cell surface phenotypes and cytotoxic activity of LAK cells were determined. The expression of CD2 remarkably decreased after culture of LAK cells for 30 days, while LFA-1, a principal adhesion molecule in LAK cells, and CD3 were not changed by the culture. LAK cells cultured for 90 days completely lost CD2. In accordance with the decrease of CD2, the cytotoxic activity of LAK cells declined but a certain leven was retained even after the complete loss of CD2. The established LAK cell clones were also strongly positive for the expression of LFA-1 but negative for CD2. When the LAK cell clones were transfected with the CD2 cDNA, they started to express CD2 on their cell surface and to show greater binding ability and stronger cytotoxicity to target tumor cells. These results indicated that CD2 plays a role as an adhesion molecule responsible for target cell killing in murine LAK cells.

The therapeutic effect of a combined modality of lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) on MBL-2 tumor in C57BL/6 mice was studied. Murine LAK cells induced from splenocytes by interleukin 2 (IL2) could lyse MBL-2 target cells in vitro. but no enhancement of the LAK activity was found by the treatment of LAK cells with TNF alpha in vitro. However, the treatment of MBL-2 with TNF alpha enhanced the sensitivity to LAK cells. Moreover, administration of TNF alpha to mice bearing solid MBL-2 tumor led to increased tumor vascular permeability within 1 h, and resulted in the enhanced accumulation of systemically transferred LAK cells in tumor tissue. Based on these results, we treated MBL-2-bearing mice with TNF alpha and then with LAK cells 1 h later. No therapeutic effect was observed when tumor-bearing mice were treated with TNF alpha alone or LAK cells plus IL2. However, adoptive immunotherapy using LAK cells and TNF alpha had therapeutic effects, i.e., growth inhibition of tumor nodules and prolongation of survival. These results indicated that appropriately timed pretreatment of tumor-bearing mice with TNF alpha augmented the anti-tumor efficacy of LAK cells.

To assess the properties of lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells, we established mouse LAK cell clones from LAK cell lines induced from C57BL/6 mouse spleen cells. Although these clones expressed similar phenotypes to the parent LAK cells, Lyt-2 was expressed in a restricted portion of the clones. All clones were found to express T3 CD2 and T cell receptor (TcR) alpha beta on their cell surface. Rearrangement patterns of TcR beta were the same among the clones derived from the same parent cell line but differed in those from different cell lines as determined by using C beta 1 and J beta 2 probes. The molecules responsible for LAK-target cell binding were examined by using a monoclonal antibody (mAb) against lymphocyte function associated antigen 1 (LFA-1). This mAb (termed KBA) showed inhibitory effects on both LAK-target cell binding and cytolytic activity of LAK cell clones, indicating a principal role of LFA-1 in LAK cell clones. The magnitude of perforin mRNA expression in LAK cell clones was unrelated to their cytolytic activities.

Release of granule enzyme(s) (BLT esterase) in the antibody dependent lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cell-mediated cytotoxic reaction (LAK ADCC) was studied using LAK cells induced from murine splenocytes and thymocytes, various human tumor cells and relevant monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to the tumor cells. BLT esterase was not significantly released from LAK cells in direct LAK cell-mediated cytotoxic reactions (LAK CMC). However, cultures of LAK cells and IgG-coated target tumor cells resulted in release of the enzyme concomitantly with target cell lysis, although esterase release proceeded faster than target cell lysis. Anti-LFA-1 mAb showed an inhibitory effect on LAK CMC but not on either LAK ADCC or BLT esterase release in the ADCC. These results indicate that exocytosis of granule enzyme from LAK cells is triggered by stimulation of Fc receptor on LAK cells and that LAK CMC and LAK ADCC differ in their lytic mechanism in terms of the release of BLT esterase.