lymphocyte proliferation assay

Nowadays, T-cell receptor (TCR) gene transfer has developed as a promising therapeutic strategy for adoptive tumor immunotherapy which shows desired specificity and efficacy target various cancers. TCR-modified T cells works by recognizing tumor associated antigens and promoting T cells proliferation via T cell receptors in the engineered signaling domains, resulting in launching a strong immune response against disease-related tissues. And a key feature of the adaptive immune response is the ability of clones of antigen-specific lymphocytes to rapidly proliferate and differentiate into effector cells. Thus, to monitor an immune response, it is of great importance to have procedures that can follow lymphocyte proliferation. What's more, it is well documented that during tumor progression, the failure of T cell proliferation and persistence in response to tumors results in the incapability of immune systems to eliminate cancers. Therefore, sufficient amount of activated T cells is crucial to perform effective immune responses and it is necessary to assess the lymphocyte proliferation to make sure those engineered T cells has right specifity against tumors. Usually, lymphocyte proliferation assay measures the ability of lymphocytes placed in short-term tissue culture to undergo a clonal proliferation when stimulated in vitro by a foreign molecule, antigen or mitogen.