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Review
. 2021 Apr;21(4):340.
doi: 10.3892/etm.2021.9771. Epub 2021 Feb 10.

Chimeric antigen receptor-natural killer cells: Novel insight into immunotherapy for solid tumors (Review)

Xiaobo Peng  1 , Ling Chen  1 , Longpei Chen  1 , Bin Wang  1 , Yiran Wang  1 , Xianbao Zhan  1
Affiliations
Review

Chimeric antigen receptor-natural killer cells: Novel insight into immunotherapy for solid tumors (Review)

Xiaobo Peng et al. Exp Ther Med. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

The chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) is an artificially modified fusion protein consisting of an extracellular antigen-binding domain, transmembrane domain and intracellular signalling domain. CAR-T therapy has demonstrated remarkable clinical efficacy in hematological malignancies. However, cytokine release syndrome and other side effects have hindered its application in solid tumors. CAR-natural killer (NK) cells have attracted broad attention due to their safety in clinical applications, their mechanism in recognising cancer cells and the abundance of its clinical specimens. Preclinical and clinical trials of human primary NK cells and NK-92 cell lines demonstrated that CAR-NK cells are able to fight haematological malignancies and solid tumors. However, the implication of CAR-NK cell therapy also has certain challenges, including the expansion and activation of primary NK cells in vitro, selection of CAR targets, survival time of CAR-NK cells in vivo, storage and transportation of NK cells, and efficiency of NK cell transduction. This review focuses on the latest progress of CAR-NK cells in the treatment of solid tumors.

Keywords: chimeric antigen receptor; immunotherapy; natural killer cells; solid tumors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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