Open AccessCAR‐NK cells from engineered pluripotent stem cells: Off‐the‐shelf therapeutics for all patients
Author(s) -
Lu ShiJiang,
Feng Qiang
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
stem cells translational medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.781
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 2157-6580
pISSN - 2157-6564
DOI - 10.1002/sctm.21-0135
Subject(s) - chimeric antigen receptor , induced pluripotent stem cell , cell therapy , cytotoxic t cell , immunotherapy , cancer immunotherapy , stem cell , cancer research , immunology , biology , antigen , immune system , microbiology and biotechnology , embryonic stem cell , gene , biochemistry , in vitro
Clinical success of adoptive cell therapy with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells for treating hematological malignancies has revolutionized the field of cellular immunotherapy. However, due to the nature of utilizing autologous T cells, affordability and availability are major hurdles, in addition to scientific challenges relating to CAR‐T therapy optimization. Natural killer (NK) cell is a specialized immune effector cell type that recognizes and kills targets without human leukocyte antigen (HLA) restriction and prior sensitization. CAR‐NK cells do not cause graft vs host disease and can be obtained from unrelated donors as well as pluripotent stem cells (PSC), representing an ideal off‐the‐shelf therapeutics readily available for patients. Furthermore, unlike cytotoxic T cells, NK cells specifically target and eliminate cancer stem cells, which are the cells causing relapse and metastasis. PSCs can be genetically manipulated and engineered with CARs at the pluripotent stage, which allows the establishment of permanent, stable, and clonal PSC‐CAR lines for the manufacture of unlimited homogenous CAR‐NK cells. Multiple master PSC‐CAR cell banks targeting a variety of antigens for cancer, viral infection, and autoimmune diseases provide inexhaustible cell sources for all patients. Development of a next‐generation 3D bioreactor platform for PSC expansion and NK cell production overcomes major barriers related to cost and scalability for CAR‐NK product.