1. Academic Validation
  2. A chimeric antigen receptor uniquely recognizing MICA/B stress proteins provides an effective approach to target solid tumors

A chimeric antigen receptor uniquely recognizing MICA/B stress proteins provides an effective approach to target solid tumors

  • Med. 2023 May 9;S2666-6340(23)00136-8. doi: 10.1016/j.medj.2023.04.004.
John Goulding 1 Wen-I Yeh 2 Bryan Hancock 2 Robert Blum 2 Tianhao Xu 2 Bi-Huei Yang 2 Chia-Wei Chang 2 Brian Groff 2 Earl Avramis 2 Mochtar Pribadi 2 Yijia Pan 2 Hui-Yi Chu 2 Shohreh Sikaroodi 2 Lauren Fong 2 Nicholas Brookhouser 2 Thomas Dailey 2 Miguel Meza 2 Matthew Denholtz 2 Evelyn Diaz 2 Judy Martin 2 Peter Szabo 2 Sarah Cooley 2 Lucas Ferrari de Andrade 3 Tom T Lee 2 Ryan Bjordahl 2 Kai W Wucherpfennig 4 Bahram Valamehr 5
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Fate Therapeutics Inc., San Diego, CA 92131, USA. Electronic address: bobby.goulding@fatetherapeutics.com.com.
  • 2 Fate Therapeutics Inc., San Diego, CA 92131, USA.
  • 3 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.
  • 4 Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA; Department of Neurology, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Immunology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
  • 5 Fate Therapeutics Inc., San Diego, CA 92131, USA. Electronic address: bob.valamehr@fatetherapeutics.com.
Abstract

Background: The advent of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies has transformed the treatment of hematological malignancies; however, broader therapeutic success of CAR T cells has been limited in solid tumors because of their frequently heterogeneous composition. Stress proteins in the MICA and MICB (MICA/B) family are broadly expressed by tumor cells following DNA damage but are rapidly shed to evade immune detection.

Methods: We have developed a novel CAR targeting the conserved α3 domain of MICA/B (3MICA/B CAR) and incorporated it into a multiplexed-engineered induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived natural killer (NK) cell (3MICA/B CAR iNK) that expressed a shedding-resistant form of the CD16 Fc receptor to enable tumor recognition through two major targeting receptors.

Findings: We demonstrated that 3MICA/B CAR mitigates MICA/B shedding and inhibition via soluble MICA/B while simultaneously exhibiting antigen-specific anti-tumor reactivity across an expansive library of human Cancer cell lines. Pre-clinical assessment of 3MICA/B CAR iNK cells demonstrated potent antigen-specific in vivo cytolytic activity against both solid and hematological xenograft models, which was further enhanced in combination with tumor-targeted therapeutic Antibodies that activate the CD16 Fc receptor.

Conclusions: Our work demonstrated 3MICA/B CAR iNK cells to be a promising multi-antigen-targeting Cancer Immunotherapy approach intended for solid tumors.

Funding: Funded by Fate Therapeutics and NIH (R01CA238039).

Keywords

MICA/B; NK cell; Pre-clinical research; antigen heterogeneity; cell therapy; chimeric antigen receptor; iPSC; pan tumor antigen; solid tumor; stress ligand; tumor immune evasion.

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