Designer Small-Molecule Control System Based on Minocycline-Induced Disruption of Protein-Protein Interaction.

A versatile, safe, and effective small-molecule control system is highly desirable for clinical cell therapy applications. Therefore, we developed a two-component small-molecule control system based on the disruption of protein-protein interactions using minocycline, an FDA-approved antibiotic with wide availability, excellent biodistribution, and low toxicity. The system comprises an anti-minocycline single-domain antibody (sdAb) and a minocycline-displaceable cyclic peptide. Here, we show how this versatile system can be applied to OFF-switch split CAR systems (MinoCAR) and universal CAR adaptors (MinoUniCAR) with reversible, transient, and dose-dependent suppression; to a tunable T cell activation module based on MyD88/CD40 signaling; to a controllable cellular payload secretion system based on IL12 KDEL retention; and as a cell/cell inducible junction. This work represents an important step forward in the development of a remote-controlled system to precisely control the timing, intensity, and safety of therapeutic interventions.

A compact and simple method of achieving differential transgene expression by exploiting translational readthrough.

The development of multicistronic vectors enabling differential transgene expression is a goal of gene therapy and poses a significant engineering challenge. Current approaches rely on the insertion of long regulatory sequences that occupy valuable space in vectors, which have a finite and limited packaging capacity. Here we describe a simple method of achieving differential transgene expression by inserting stop codons and translational readthrough motifs (TRMs) to suppress stop codon termination. TRMs reduced downstream transgene expression ∼sixfold to ∼140-fold, depending on the combination of stop codon and TRM used. We show that a TRM can facilitate the controlled secretion of the highly potent cytokine IL-12 at therapeutically beneficial levels in an aggressive immunocompetent mouse melanoma model to prevent tumor growth. Given their compact size (6 bp) and ease of introduction, we envisage that TRMs will be widely adopted in recombinant DNA engineering to facilitate differential transgene expression.