Immunological memory is thought to depend upon a stem cell-like, self-renewing population of lymphocytes capable of differentiating into effector cells in response to antigen re-exposure. Here we describe a long-lived human memory T-cell population that displays enhanced self-renewal and multipotent capacity to derive central memory, effector memory and effector T cells. These cells, specific for multiple viral and self-tumor antigens, were found within a CD45RO−, CCR7+, CD45RA+, CD62L+, CD27+, CD28+ and IL-7Rα+ T-cell compartment characteristic of naïve T cells. However, they expressed increased levels of CD95, IL-2Rβ, CXCR3, and LFA-1, and exhibited numerous functional attributes distinctive of memory cells. Compared to known memory populations, these lymphocytes displayed increased proliferative capacity, more efficiently reconstituted immunodeficient hosts and mediated superior anti-tumor responses in a humanized mouse model. The identification of a human stem cell-like memory T-cell population is of direct relevance to the design of vaccines and T-cell therapies.

Blimp-1 is a transcriptional repressor that promotes the differentiation of CD8+ T cells into short-lived KLRG-1+ effector cells (SLEC), but how it operates remains poorly defined. Here we show that Blimp-1 binds and represses the Id3 promoter in SLEC. Repression of Id3 by Blimp-1 was dispensable for SLEC development but limited their capacity to persist as memory cells. Enforced expression of Id3 was sufficient to rescue SLEC survival and enhanced recall responses. Id3 function was mediated in part through inhibition of E2a transcriptional activity and induction of genes regulating genome stability. These findings identify a Blimp-1-Id3-E2a axis as a key molecular switch that determines whether effector CD8+ T cells are programmed to die or enter the memory pool.

Purpose High-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) induces durable therapeutic responses in a small subset of patients with metastatic melanoma and renal cell carcinoma, but simple pretreatment predictors of response have not been identified. Patients and Methods To identify predictive biomarkers of clinical response, sera from patients treated with high-dose IL-2 were collected for analysis using a customized, multiplex antibody-targeted protein array platform that surveyed expression of soluble factors associated with tumor immunobiology. Soluble factors associated with clinical responses were analyzed using a multivariate permutation test, and survival outcomes were determined using Kaplan-Meier and log-rank tests. Results A training set from 10 patients identified 68 potentially relevant soluble factors that were then tested in an independent validation set of 49 patients. Class comparison revealed a cluster of 11 biomarkers that were associated with therapeutic outcome. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and fibronectin were identified as independent predictors of response. In particular, high levels of these proteins were correlated with lack of clinical response and decreased overall survival. Conclusion Serum VEGF and fibronectin are easily measured pretreatment biomarkers that could serve to exclude patients unlikely to respond to IL-2 therapy.