A New Hope in Immunotherapy for Malignant Gliomas: Adoptive T Cell Transfer Therapy

Table 2

Comparison of the effector cells used in adoptive T cell therapy for malignant glioma.

Effector cells	Advantages	Disadvantages
Lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) cells	MHC-independent cytotoxicity; Easy preparation of cells	Nonspecific killing; IL-2 related toxicities
Natural killer (NK) cells	MHC-independent cytotoxicity; Immediate response; Can be modified to target tumor antigens genetically	Nonspecific killing
γ δ T cells	MHC-independent cytotoxicity; Immediate response	Nonspecific killing
Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs)	Presumably tumor-specific killing	Need T cells from tumor tissue; Technical difficulty to expand ex vivo
CD4^+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes	Tumor-specific killing	MHC class II-dependent cytotoxicity
CD8^+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes	Tumor-specific killing; Can be modified to target tumor antigens genetically	MHC class I-dependent cytotoxicity
Genetically modified cytotoxic T lymphocytes	MHC-independent cytotoxicity; Rapid and elaborate tumor-specific killing	Induction of antigen loss variants at tumor recurrence; Possible overreactivity on same target antigens expressed in normal tissue