Figure 8.

Multifunctional, tumor-specific CD8⁺ T cells persist for several years. Patients with satisfactory sample availability were followed during the course of their disease. Dotted lines indicate the frequency of responding, tumor-specific CD8⁺ T cells (right y-axis) and filled lines indicate the percentage of multifunctional T cells within these responses (left y-axis). Blue lines indicate the last administration of DC vaccination therapy. Orange lines indicate the time point of disease progression, red lines indicate the death of the patient. The functionality of DC vaccination-induced CD8⁺ T cell responses increased for most patients during the period of vaccination and remained steady afterwards. The functionality of T cell responses against different tumor antigens within the same patients developed differently. Induced multifunctional T cells persisted in some cases for more than 100 mo after last administration of DC vaccination.