Interactions between interleukin-2-activated lymphocytes and vascular endothelium: binding to and migration across specialized and non-specialized endothelia.

A prerequisite for the successful immunotherapy of solid tumours with interleukin-2 (IL-2)-activated lymphocytes is their ability to home to the tumour tissue. Lymphocyte homing is a complex process which is known to involve at least two independently regulated events: adhesion to the luminal surface of vascular endothelium and the subsequent transendothelial migration of lymphocytes. In this study we have used an in vitro model of lymphocyte homing which employs specialized high endothelium to ask whether IL-2-activated lymphocytes are able to migrate across vascular endothelium in order to leave the blood vessel. Both the adhesion of IL-2-activated cells and their migration across monolayers of cultured high endothelial cells (HEC) were increased in comparison with non-activated lymphocytes. The adhesion of IL-2-activated lymphocytes was mediated by lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1) and a very late activation antigen-4 (VLA-4)-related pathway. LFA-1-dependent adhesion was mediated by ligands on HEC other than the intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and the VLA-4-related pathway was mediated by ligands other than the CS1 domain of fibronectin. HEC-adherent lymphocytes were enriched in natural killer (NK) cells and CD8+ T cells which are known to be the tumour-cytotoxic cells in IL-2-activated lymphocytes. However, there was no evidence of cytotoxicity towards the endothelial layer using a syngeneic model. The interaction of IL-2-activated lymphocytes and endothelial cells was not specific for high endothelium since equal numbers of activated lymphocytes bound to and migrated across aortic endothelium. The inability of IL-2-activated lymphocytes to discriminate between high endothelium and non-specialized 'flat' endothelium could be responsible for the widespread dissemination of the cells throughout the body following their adoptive transfer and the unwanted side-effects at non-involved sites.