ABSTRACT
A new type of killer cells, named PHA-?CD3LAK, was induced by means of costimulating the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) with anti-CD3McAb (?CD3) and rIL-2 after PHA-priming for 48 hours. Some biological characteristics of PHA-?CD3LAK, PHA-LAK and CD3AK were compared. The results showed that PHA-?CD3LAK exhibited some advantages over CD3AK and PHA-LAK in proliferation, cytotoxicity, the expression level of mIL-2R, as well as the utilizing of IL-2, suggesting the synergistic enhancing role of PHA, ?CD3 and IL-2. All three groups of effector cells were heterogeneous populations, predominantly CD3 + CD8 + T cells. The CD8 ~(+) cell percentage of PHA-?CD3LAK was higher than that of the other two groups. The application of PHA-?CD3LAK might open a new prospect to clinical therapeutic approach.