Engineering amino acid uptake or catabolism promotes CAR T-cell adaption to the tumor environment.
Blood Adv
; 7(9): 1754-1761, 2023 05 09.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36521029
ABSTRACT
Cancer cells take up amino acids from the extracellular space to drive cell proliferation and viability. Similar mechanisms are applied by immune cells, resulting in the competition between conventional T cells, or indeed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and tumor cells, for the limited availability of amino acids within the environment. We demonstrate that T cells can be re-engineered to express SLC7A5 or SLC7A11 transmembrane amino acid transporters alongside CARs. Transporter modifications increase CAR T-cell proliferation under low tryptophan or cystine conditions with no loss of CAR cytotoxicity or increased exhaustion. Transcriptomic and phenotypic analysis reveals that downstream, SLC7A5/SLC7A11-modified CAR T cells upregulate intracellular arginase expression and activity. In turn, we engineer and phenotype a further generation of CAR T cells that express functional arginase 1/arginase 2 enzymes and have enhanced CAR T-cell proliferation and antitumor activity. Thus, CAR T cells can be adapted to the amino acid metabolic microenvironment of cancer, a hitherto recognized but unaddressed barrier for successful CAR T-cell therapy.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Receptors, Chimeric Antigen
/
Neoplasms
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Blood Adv
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United kingdom