TCRvβ-CART 疗法介导对恶性 T 细胞克隆的高精度靶向

Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs) are a heterogeneous group of lymphoid malignancies associated with poor prognosis due to ineffective treatment options and high rates of relapse. The success of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) therapy for certain hematologic malignancies makes it an attractive treatment option for PTCLs.

However, shared expression of potential target antigens by both malignant and healthy T cells poses a challenge. Current prospective CART approaches cause a high degree of on-target, off-tumor activity, resulting in fratricide during CART expansion, depletion of healthy T cells in vivo, and immune compromise in the patient.

To limit off-tumor targeting, we sought to develop a CART platform specific for a given T-cell receptor vβ (TCRvβ) family that would endow CAR-modified T cells with the ability to mediate lysis of the clonal malignant population while preserving the majority of healthy T cells.

Here, CAR constructs specific for multiple TCRvβ family members were designed and validated.

Our results demonstrate that TCRvβ-family-specific CARTs (TCRvβ-CARTs) recognize and kill TCRvβ-expressing target cells. This includes specific self-depletion of the targeted cell subpopulation in the CART product and lysis of cell lines engineered to express a target TCRvβ family.

Furthermore, TCRvβ-CARTs eliminated the dominant malignant TCRvβ clone in 2 patient samples.

Finally, in immunodeficient mice, TCRvβ-CARTs eradicated malignant cells in a TCRvβ-dependent manner.

Importantly, the nontargeted TCRvβ families were spared in all cases.

Thus, TCRvβ-CART therapy provides a potential option for high-precision treatment of PTCL with limited healthy T-cell depletion.