Molecular Therapy: Oncolytics (Mar 2022)

Feasibility study of a novel preparation strategy for anti-CD7 CAR-T cells with a recombinant anti-CD7 blocking antibody

  • Jing Ye,
  • Yujie Jia,
  • Israth Jahan Tuhin,
  • Jingwen Tan,
  • Masuma Akter Monty,
  • Nan Xu,
  • Liqing Kang,
  • Minghao Li,
  • Xiaoyan Lou,
  • Meixia Zhou,
  • Xiaoyan Fang,
  • Jiaqi Shao,
  • Hongjia Zhu,
  • Zhiqiang Yan,
  • Lei Yu

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24
pp. 719 – 728

Abstract

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Although chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapy has shown promising significance in B cell malignancies, success against T cell malignancies remains unsatisfactory because of shared antigenicity between normal and malignant T cells, resulting in fratricide and hindering CAR production for clinical treatment. Here, we report a new strategy of blocking the CD7 antigen on the T cell surface with a recombinant anti-CD7 antibody to obtain a sufficient amount of CD7-targeting CAR-T cells for T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) treatment. Feasibility was evaluated systematically, revealing that blocking the CD7 antigen with an antibody effectively blocked CD7-derived fratricide, increased the expansion rate, reduced the proportion of regulatory T (Treg) cells, maintained the stem cell-like characteristics of T cells, and restored the proportion of the CD8+ T cell population. Ultimately, we obtained anti-CD7 CAR-T cells that were specifically and effectively able to kill CD7 antigen-positive target cells, obviating the need for complex T cell modifications. This approach is safer than previous methods and provides a new, simple, and feasible strategy for clinical immunotherapies targeting CD7-positive malignant tumors.

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