Generation of dendritic cells from CD14+ monocytes positively selected by immunomagnetic adsorption for multiple myeloma patients enrolled in a clinical trial of anti-idiotype vaccination.

Circulating monocytes from multiple myeloma patients enrolled in a clinical study of anti-idiotype vaccination were labelled with clinical-grade anti-CD14 microbeads and positively selected with the CliniMACS instrument. Cells were then grown, according to good manufacturing practice guidelines, in fetal-calf-serum-free medium in cell culture bags and differentiated to dendritic cells (DC) with granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor plus interleukin 4 (IL-4), followed by either tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) or a cocktail of IL-1beta, IL-6, TNF-alpha and prostaglandin-E2. The CD14+ cell yield was increased from 17.