Preferential Small Intestine Homing and Persistence of CD8 T Cells in Rhesus Macaques Achieved by Molecularly-Engineered Expression of CCR9 and Reduced Ex Vivo Manipulation.

Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) is a powerful experimental approach to directly study T-cell mediated immunity in vivo. In the rhesus macaque AIDS virus model, infusing SIV-infected animals with CD8 T cells engineered to express anti-SIV T-cell receptor specificities enables direct experimentation to better understand antiviral T-cell immunity in vivo. Limiting factors in ACT experiments include suboptimal trafficking to, and poor persistence in, the secondary lymphoid tissues targeted by AIDS-viruses. Previously, we redirected CD8 T cells to B-cell follicles by ectopic expression of the CXCR5 homing protein. Here, we modify PBMC-derived CD8 T cells to express the CCR9 chemokine receptor which induces preferential homing of the engineered cells to the small intestine, a site of intense early AIDS virus replication and pathology in rhesus macaques. Additionally, we increase in vivo persistence and overall systemic distribution of infused CD8 T cells, especially in secondary lymphoid tissues, by minimizing ex-vivo culture/manipulation, thereby avoiding the loss of CD28+ /CD95+ Tcm cells by differentiation in culture. These proof of principle results establish the feasibility of preferentially localizing PBMC-derived CD8 T cells to the small intestine and enables the direct experimental ACT-based assessment of the potential role of the quality and timing of effective antiviral CD8 T-cell responses to inhibit viral infection and subsequent replication in small intestine CD4 T cells. More broadly, these results support the engineered expression of homing proteins to direct CD8 T cells to target tissues as a means for both experimental and potential therapeutic advances in T-cell immunotherapies, including cancer. IMPORTANCE Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) of T cells engineered with antigen-specific effector properties can deliver targeted immune responses against malignancies and infectious diseases. Current T cell-based therapeutic ACT relies on circulatory distribution to deliver engineered T cells to their targets, an approach which has proven effective for some leukemias but provided only limited efficacy against solid tumors. Here, engineered expression of the CCR9 homing receptor redirected CD8 T cells to the small intestine in rhesus macaque ACT experiments. Targeted homing of engineered T-cell immunotherapies holds promise to increase the effectiveness of adoptively transferred cells in both experimental and clinical settings.