T-Cell Immune Surveillance in Allogenic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients: Are Whole Blood-Based Assays Ready to Challenge ELISPOT?

Chris D Lauruschkat; Lukas Page; Sonja Etter; Philipp Weis; Florian Gamon; Sabrina Kraus; Hermann Einsele; Sebastian Wurster; Juergen Loeffler

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofaa547

T-Cell Immune Surveillance in Allogenic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients: Are Whole Blood-Based Assays Ready to Challenge ELISPOT?

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2020 Nov 8;8(1):ofaa547. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofaa547. eCollection 2021 Jan.

Authors

Chris D Lauruschkat¹, Lukas Page¹, Sonja Etter¹, Philipp Weis¹, Florian Gamon¹, Sabrina Kraus¹, Hermann Einsele¹, Sebastian Wurster², Juergen Loeffler¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine II, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany.
² Department of Infectious Diseases, Infection Control and Employee Health, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

Abstract

We compared the feasibility of 4 cytomegalovirus (CMV)- and Aspergillus-reactive T-cell immunoassay protocols in allogenic stem cell transplant recipients. While enzyme-linked immunospot performed best overall, logistically advantageous whole blood-based assays performed comparably in patients with less severe lymphocytopenia. CMV-induced interferon-gamma responses correlated strongly across all protocols and showed high concordance with serology.

Keywords: ELISPOT; T cells; aspergillosis; biomarker; cytokines; cytomegalovirus; flow cytometry; immunoassay.