In vitro production of human antigen presenting cells issued from bone marrow of patients with cancer

In the prospect of producing autologous antigen presenting cells (APC) to actively immunize patients with cancer against their own tumor we were interested in the in vitro generation of MC and/or dendritic cells. We observed that the best yielding in CD14+ cells was obtained by adding SCF and GM-CSF into RPMI 1640 completed medium and by using Tenon bags as culture-containers. The others growth factors tested (LIF, IL3 and M-CSF) were useless in term of production of macrophages. After a month of culture we usually obtained an average of 80% of CD14, CD33, CD64, CD11a, CD11b, CD11c and HLA-DR positive cells expressing the MGG staining phenotype of MC. For DC the best association of growth factors combined GM-CSF, IL4 and SCF. Hence we could obtained at least 60% of CD1a+, CD14-, CD54+, CD58+, CD80+ and HLA DR+ dendritic cells.