Dataset related to article "Chemotherapy accelerates immune-senescence and functional impairments of Vδ2pos T cells in elderly patients affected by liver metastatic colorectal cancer."

<p>Human (gamma delta) &gamma;&delta; T cells are unconventional innate-like lymphocytes displaying a broad array of anti-tumor activities with promising perspectives in cancer immunotherapy. In this context, V&delta;2^pos T cells represent the preferential target of several immunotherapy protocols against solid tumors. However, the impact of both aging and chemotherapy (CHT) on V&delta;2^pos T cells is still unknown. The present study evaluates with multi-parametric flow cytometry the frequencies, terminal differentiation, senescence and effector-functions of peripheral blood and tumor infiltrating V&delta;2^pos T cells purified from liver metastases (CLM) of patients affected by colorectal cancer (CRC) compared to those of sex- and age-matched healthy donors. The peripheral blood of CLM patients underwent CHT is characterized by decreased amounts of V&delta;2^pos T cells showing a relative increase of terminally-differentiated CD27^neg/CD45RA^pos (T_EMRA) cells. The enrichment of this latter subset is associated with an increased expression of the senescent marker CD57. The acquisition of CD57 on T_EMRA V&delta;2^pos T cells is also coupled with impairments in cytotoxicity and production of TNF-&alpha; and IFN-&gamma;. These features resemble the acquisition of an immune-senescent profile by V&delta;2^pos T cells from CLM patients that received CHT, a phenomenon that is also associated with the loss of the co-stimulatory marker CD28 and with the induced expression of CD16. The group of CLM patients underwent CHT and older than 60&thinsp;years old showed higher frequencies of CD57^pos and T_EMRA V&delta;2^pos T cells. Similar results were found for tumor infiltrating V&delta;2^pos T cell subset purified from CLM specimens of patients treated with&nbsp;CHT. The toxicity of CHT regimens also affects the homeostasis of V&delta;2^pos T cells by inducing higher frequencies of circulating CD57^pos T_EMRA subset in CLM underwent CHT and younger than 60&thinsp;years old. Taken together, our data demonstrate that the enrichment of senescent V&delta;2^pos T cells in CLM patients is not only induced by patients&#39; aging but also by the toxicity of CHT that further accelerates the accumulation of CD57^pos T_EMRA cells highly dysfunctional in their anti-tumor activities. These results are important to both predict the clinical outcome of CLM and to optimize those protocols of cell cancer immunotherapy employing unconventional V&delta;2^pos T cells.</p>