High-quality and high-avidity T cell clones specific for tumor-associated antigens and how to find them

The adoptive transfer of lymphocytes expressing high-avidity T-cell receptors with antitumor specificity provides a promising therapy for cancer patients. Recently, we compared 12 HLA-A2-restricted, tyrosinase peptide-specific CD8(+) cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) clones and demonstrated that polyfunctional type 1 helper (Th1)-cytokine secretion serves to rapidly select high-quality, high-avidity CTLs.