Intrinsically de-sialylated CD103+ CD8 T cells mediate beneficial anti-glioma immune responses

Background Cancer vaccines reproducibly cure laboratory animals and reveal encouraging trends in brain tumor (glioma) patients. Identifying parameters governing beneficial vaccine-induced responses may lead to the improvement of glioma immunotherapies. CD103+ CD8 T cells dominate post-vaccine responses in human glioma patients for unknown reasons, but may be related to recent thymic emigrant (RTE) status. Importantly, CD8 RTE metrics correlated with beneficial immune responses in vaccinated glioma patients.