Engineered T cells for cancer treatment

Abstract

Adoptively transferred T cells have the capacity to traffic to distant tumor sites, infiltrate fibrotic tissue and kill antigen-expressing tumor cells. Various groups have investigated different genetic engineering strategies designed to enhance tumor specificity, increase T cell potency, improve proliferation, persistence or migratory capacity and increase safety. This review focuses on recent developments in T cell engineering, discusses the clinical application of these engineered cell products and outlines future prospects for this therapeutic modality.

Keywords: CAR T cells; cancer treatment; genetic modification of T cells; immunotherapy.

Figure 1

Examples of Genetic modifications that have been explored individually or in combination with the purpose of improving the function and safety of T cells. These modifications include the transgenic expression of proteins that (i) enhance T cell homing to tumor sites, (ii) provide resistance to the tumor microenvironment, (iii) improve their proliferation and persistence and (iv) enhance their safety.

Figure 2

a schematic of transgenic α and β T cell receptors (αβT CRs) and chimeric antigen receptor (CARs) and shows the differences and similarities between these two most common strategies used to redirect the immune T cell response.