Application data and FAQs for LymphoONE medium

The development of therapies utilizing adoptive T-cell transfer has provided powerful new approaches for combating previously intractable diseases such as cancer. However, the broader application of these approaches will require additional technological innovation and refinement of existing protocols for culturing and engineering T cells. For example, in order to obtain sufficient quantities of patient-derived T cells for therapeutic applications, conventional culture systems typically require supplementation of culture medium with serum or plasma, which can be problematic for a variety of reasons:

• Supplies of autologous serum that can be obtained from a patient are limited and vary depending on the patient's condition
• Supplementation with donor serum of bovine or human origin is costly, introduces a source of unwanted variability in protocol performance, and raises the risk of pathogen exposure
• Culturing in the absence of serum yields T cells that exhibit improved downstream performance (Janetzki et al. 2010; Medvec et al. 2018)

Efficient T-cell expansion without serum

To better facilitate research involving T cell-based therapies, Takara Bio has developed LymphoONE T-Cell Expansion Xeno-Free Medium, a chemically defined medium that enables efficient T-cell expansion without the addition of serum or plasma. As demonstrated by the data below, LymphoONE medium enables greater expansion relative to Takara Bio's previous offering (GT-T551) and commonly used serum-free media from other suppliers (X-VIVO 15, AIM V).

Higher proportions of naïve T cells

In addition to expansion efficiency, another critical factor in the development of T cell-based therapies involves the phenotypic characteristics of expanded populations. Research over the past decade has established that T cells with a naïve phenotype provide greater therapeutic efficacy as compared to more differentiated populations (Klebanoff et al. 2015), an understanding that has informed the development of LymphoONE medium, as demonstrated below.

References

Janetzki, S. et al. Performance of serum-supplemented and serum-free media in IFNgamma Elispot Assays for human T cells. Cancer Immunol. Immunother. 59, 609–18 (2010).

Klebanoff et al. Memory T cell-driven differentiation of naive cells impairs adoptive immunotherapy. J. Clin. Invest. 126, 318–334 (2016).

Medvec, A. R. et al. Improved expansion and in vivo function of patient T cells by a serum-free medium. Mol. Ther. Methods Clin. Dev. 8, 65–74 (2018).