Tumor antigen-induced lymphocyte transformation (LT) represents the antitumor cellular immunity, which might correlate with the cancer treatment outcome. Currently, there is no LT assay (LTA) routinely used in clinic. To establish a sensitive and convenient procedure for LTA, the same samples were used to simultaneously perform three assays: 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) assay, 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, and carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE) assay, and then the three results were compared. Several conditions were optimized: the LT harvest time, sources of lymphocytes (blood, lymph nodes, or spleen), the added amount of stimulatory tumor antigen and in vivo immunization priming time for LTA. The results of side-by-side comparison showed that (1) the 72 h for coculture of lymphocytes with tumor antigens was optimal time to harvest cells for LTA; (2) 50 μg/mL of tumor antigens was the optimal concentration for activation LT from three sources; (3) EdU incorporation was the sensitive and convenient assay for LTA as compared with MTT and CFSE assays; (4) the day 21-28 after in vivo priming immunization was the testing time for LTA; and (5) peripheral blood LT could be a good representative of whole body's lymphocyte reaction and practically easy cell source for LTA. This comparison of the three LTA in mouse model suggests that the EdU incorporation assay might be useful to evaluate the antitumor immunity stimulated by specific tumor vaccine or different anticancer therapies.
Keywords: EdU assay; cellular immunity; immunization; lymphocyte transformation; tumor antigen.