Development of GMP-Compatible Protocols for Thymus-Derived Regulatory T Cell Expansion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Animal and early clinical studies have shown that regulatory T cell (Treg) therapy can prevent graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) following hematopoietic stem cell transplant. Despite these promising results, challenges remain in administering Treg therapy including the difficulty in isolating pure Tregs and expanding them to a therapeutic dose. We have previously found that the thymus, which is routinely removed during pediatric cardiac surgery, is a plentiful source of Tregs. These Tregs can be easily isolated, and can prevent xenoGVHD in mice. However, to use this therapy in humans, standard GMP-compliant methods for isolation and large-scale expansion of thymic Tregs must be developed. Methods: CD4+CD8-CD25+ thymic Tregs were isolated from pediatric thymuses using GMP-compatible magnetic bead-based separation. Tregs were expanded using artificial antigen-presenting cells or GMP-compatible antibody tetramer complexes that stimulate CD3 and CD28, with or without additional activation of CD2. Cells were cultured with rapamycin and IL-2, and were restimulated after 7 days without rapamycin. Results: Thymic Tregs expand in vitro when cultured with tetrameric antibody complexes. About 50-fold expansion was achieved using the anti-CD3/CD28/CD2 antibody tetramers, which represents the expansion that will be necessary to reach a clinically relevant dose. A higher expansion rate was obtained using the anti-CD3/CD28/CD2 antibody tetramer complexes than the anti-CD3/CD28. Cells cultured with these antibody tetramers express high levels of FOXP3, similar levels of Treg-characteristic markers as those expanded with artificial antigen-presenting cells, and do not produce inflammatory cytokines. Conclusion: Thymic Tregs can be isolated and expanded with GMP-compliant methods. Once the protocol is optimized, we can transfer our protocols to a GMP facility for further process development and to generate data required for a clinical trial application. We are the first group to pursue clinical application using allogeneic thymic Tregs, which provide an opportunity for an “off-the-shelf” therapy to treat GVHD. Canadian National Transplant Research Program.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".