Antigen experience history directs distinct functional states of CD8+ CAR T cells during the anti-leukemia response
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE281486 | GEO | 2024/11/14
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Adoptive transfer of immune cells expressing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) is an effective therapy for B-lineage malignancies. However, most patients will relapse and this therapeutic has yet to show strong efficacy in other hematologic or solid tumors. One opportunity for improvement lies in the ability to select or generate T cells that have the highest potential for potent anti-tumor responses and T cell persistence. Here, we dissect the biology of CD8+ CAR T cells by controlling whether the T cell has encountered cognate TCR antigen prior to CAR generation. We find that prior antigen experience influences multiple aspects of in vitro and in vivo CAR T cell functionality, boosting effector function and leukemia clearance in the setting of limiting target antigen density. However, this comes at the expense of proliferative capacity, resistance to dysfunction, and clearance of wildtype leukemia in the setting of limiting CAR+ cell dose. Epigenetic and transcriptomic comparisons of these cell populations uncover that modulation of the Runx2 transcription factor differentially impacts CAR T cell functionality depending on prior cell state. Collectively, our data demonstrate that prior antigen experience status determines functional attributes of a CAR T cell, as well as amenability to functional enhancement by transcription factor modulation.
2024-11-10 | GSE249733 | GEO
Project description:Adoptive transfer of immune cells expressing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) is an effective therapy for B-lineage malignancies. However, most patients will relapse and this therapeutic has yet to show strong efficacy in other hematologic or solid tumors. One opportunity for improvement lies in the ability to select or generate T cells that have the highest potential for potent anti-tumor responses and T cell persistence. Here, we dissect the biology of CD8+ CAR T cells by controlling whether the T cell has encountered cognate TCR antigen prior to CAR generation. We find that prior antigen experience influences multiple aspects of in vitro and in vivo CAR T cell functionality, boosting effector function and leukemia clearance in the setting of limiting target antigen density. However, this comes at the expense of proliferative capacity, resistance to dysfunction, and clearance of wildtype leukemia in the setting of limiting CAR+ cell dose. Epigenetic and transcriptomic comparisons of these cell populations uncover that modulation of the Runx2 transcription factor differentially impacts CAR T cell functionality depending on prior cell state. Collectively, our data demonstrate that prior antigen experience status determines functional attributes of a CAR T cell, as well as amenability to functional enhancement by transcription factor modulation.
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Project description:Adoptive transfer of immune cells expressing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) is an effective therapy for B-lineage malignancies. However, most patients will relapse and this therapeutic has yet to show strong efficacy in other hematologic or solid tumors. One opportunity for improvement lies in the ability to select or generate T cells that have the highest potential for potent anti-tumor responses and T cell persistence. Here, we dissect the biology of CD8+ CAR T cells by controlling whether the T cell has encountered cognate TCR antigen prior to CAR generation. We find that prior antigen experience influences multiple aspects of in vitro and in vivo CAR T cell functionality, boosting effector function and leukemia clearance in the setting of limiting target antigen density. However, this comes at the expense of proliferative capacity, resistance to dysfunction, and clearance of wildtype leukemia in the setting of limiting CAR+ cell dose. Epigenetic and transcriptomic comparisons of these cell populations uncover that modulation of the Runx2 transcription factor differentially impacts CAR T cell functionality depending on prior cell state. Collectively, our data demonstrate that prior antigen experience status determines functional attributes of a CAR T cell, as well as amenability to functional enhancement by transcription factor modulation.
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Project description:Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell dysfunction is a major barrier to achieving lasting remission in hematologic cancers, especially in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. We have shown previously that Δ133p53α, an endogenous isoform of the human TP53 gene, decreases in expression with age in human T cells, and that reconstitution of Δ133p53α in poorly functional T cells can rescue proliferation. Although Δ133p53α lacks a transactivation domain, it can form heterooligomers with full length p53 and modulate the p53-mediated stress response. Here, we show that constitutive expression of Δ133p53α, potentiates the anti-tumor activity of CD19-directed CAR T cells, and limits dysfunction under conditions of high tumor burden and metabolic stress. We demonstrate that Δ133p53α-expressing CAR T cells exhibit a robust metabolic phenotype, maintaining the ability to execute effector functions and continue proliferating under nutrient limiting conditions, in part due to upregulation of critical biosynthetic processes and improved mitochondrial function. Importantly, we show that our strategy to constitutively express Δ133p53α improves the anti-tumor efficacy of CAR T cells generated from CLL patients that previously failed CAR T cell therapy. More broadly, our results point to the potential role of the p53-mediated stress response in limiting the prolonged antitumor functions required for complete tumor clearance in patients with high disease burden, suggesting that modulation of the p53 signaling network with Δ133p53α may represent a translationally viable strategy for improving CAR T cell therapy.
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2024-05-27 | GSE262072 | GEO
Project description:A significant challenge for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy against glioblastoma (GBM) is its immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), which is densely populated and supported by protumoral glioma-associated microglia and macrophages (GAMs). Targeting CD47, a don't-eat-me signal overexpressed by tumor cells, disrupts the CD47-SIRPalpha axis and induces GAM phagocytic function. However, antibody-mediated CD47 blockade monotherapy is associated with toxicity and low bioavailability in solid tumors. To overcome these limitations, we combined local CAR T cell therapy with paracrine GAM modulation to effectively eliminate GBM. To this end, we engineered a new CAR T cell against epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII) that constitutively secretes a signal regulatory protein gamma (SIRPgamma)-related protein (SGRP) with high affinity to CD47. Anti-EGFRvIII-SGRP CAR T cells eliminated EGFRvIII+ GBM in a dose-dependent manner in vitro and eradicated orthotopically xenografted EGFRvIII-mosaic GBM by locoregional application in vivo. This resulted in significant tumor-free long-term survival, followed by partial tumor control upon tumor re-challenge. Combining anti-CD47 antibodies with anti-EGFRvIII CAR T cells failed to achieve a similar therapeutic effect, underscoring the importance of sustained paracrine GAM modulation. Multidimensional brain immunofluorescence microscopy and in-depth spectral flow cytometry on GBM-xenografted brains showed that anti-EGFRvIII-SGRP CAR T cells accelerated GBM clearance, increased CD68+ cell trafficking to tumor scar sites and promoted GAM-mediated tumor cell uptake. In a peripheral lymphoma mouse xenograft model, anti-CD19-SGRP CAR T cells had superior efficacy to conventional anti-CD19 CAR T cells. Validation on human GBM explants revealed that anti-EGFRvIII-SGRP CAR T cells had a similar tumor-killing capacity to anti-EGFRvIII CAR monotherapy but showed a slight improvement in the maintenance of tumor-infiltrated CD14+ cells. Thus, local anti-EGFRvIII-SGRP CAR T cell therapy combines the potent antitumor effect of engineered T cells with the modulation of the surrounding innate immune TME. This results in the additive elimination of bystander EGFRvIII- tumor cells in a manner that overcomes the main mechanisms of CAR T cell therapy resistance, including tumor innate immune suppression and antigen escape.
2024-07-19 | MSV000095386 | MassIVE
Project description:Analysis of TH17 cells redirected with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) expressing various signaling domains (including CD28, 4-1BB and ICOS) after surrogate antigen stimulation. Our results showed that T cells redirected with an ICOS-based CAR specifically retained a genotype of TH17 cells with expression of Il17a, Il17f, Il1r1, Ccl20, Rorc, and in the absence of Foxp3 CAR-redirected TH17 cells from three different human normal donors were stimulated with immobilized recombinant mesothelin. Gene expression levels were determined prior to stimulation (day 0) and 4, 8, 24 and 96 hours upon antigen recognition.
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Project description:Engineered cellular therapy with CD19-targeting chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-T) has revolutionized outcomes for patients with relapsed/refractory Large B-Cell Lymphoma (LBCL), but the cellular and molecular features associated with response remain largely unresolved. We analyzed serial peripheral blood samples ranging from day of apheresis (day -28/baseline) to 28 days after CAR-T infusion from 50 patients with LBCL treated with axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) by integrating single cell RNA and TCR sequencing (scRNA-seq/scTCR-seq), flow cytometry, and mass cytometry (CyTOF) to characterize features associated with response to CAR-T. Pretreatment patient characteristics associated with response included presence of B cells and increased lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (ALC/AMC). Infusion products from responders were enriched for clonally expanded, highly activated CD8+ T cells. We expanded these observations to 99 patients from the ZUMA-1 cohort and identified a subset of patients with elevated baseline B cells, 80% of whom were complete responders. We integrated B cell proportion and ALC/AMC into a two-factor predictive model and applied this model to the ZUMA-1 cohort. Estimated progression free survival (PFS) at 1 year in patients meeting one or both criteria was 65% versus 31% for patients meeting neither criterion. Our results suggest that patients’ immunologic state at baseline affects likelihood of response to CAR-T through both modulation of the T cell apheresis product composition and promoting a more favorable circulating immune compartment prior to therapy. These baseline immunologic features, measured readily in the clinical setting prior to CAR-T, can be applied to predict response to therapy.
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Project description:CD70 is an attractive target for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy as treatment for both solid and liquid malignancies. However, functionality of CD70-specific CAR T cells is only modest. Here, we optimized a CD70-specific VHH based CAR (nanoCAR). We evaluated the nanoCARs in clinically relevant models in vitro, using co-cultures of CD70-specific nanoCAR T cells with malignant rhabdoid tumor organoids, and in vivo by using a diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model. Whereas the nanoCAR T cells were highly efficient in organoid co-cultures, they showed only modest efficacy in the PDX model. Knocking out CD70 expression in the nanoCAR T cells resulted in dramatically enhanced functionality in the PDX model, suggesting that CD70 interaction in cis with the nanoCAR induces exhaustion. Through single-cell transcriptomics, we obtained evidence that CD70 KO CD70-specific nanoCAR T cells are protected from antigen-induced exhaustion. Our data show that CARs targeted to endogenous T cell antigens, negatively affect CAR T cell functionality by inducing an exhausted state, which can be overcome by knocking out the specific target, in this case CD70.
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Project description:This mathematical model of T cell-tumour interactions considering the roles of T cell competition and stochastic extinction events in CAR T cell therapy is described by the publication:
Kimmel GJ, Locke FL, Altrock PM. "The roles of T cell competition and stochastic extinction events in chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy." Proc Biol Sci. 2021 Mar 31;288(1947):20210229.
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0229
Comment:
Reproduction of Fig. 2(a) and (b) was simulated by using the fitted model parameter set given in Table 1 of the manuscript's Supplementary Material, however substituting the values of r_N and rho_C for those stated in Table 1 of the publication manuscript, i.e. r_N = 0.17 and rho_C = 0.0251.
Abstract:
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is a remarkably effective immunotherapy that relies on in vivo expansion of engineered CAR T cells, after lymphodepletion (LD) by chemotherapy. The quantitative laws underlying this expansion and subsequent tumour eradication remain unknown. We develop a mathematical model of T cell–tumour cell interactions and demonstrate that expansion can be explained by immune reconstitution dynamics after LD and competition among T cells. CAR T cells rapidly grow and engage tumour cells but experience an emerging growth rate disadvantage compared to normal T cells. Since tumour eradication is deterministically unstable in our model, we define cure as a stochastic event, which, even when likely, can occur at variable times. However, we show that variability in timing is largely determined by patient variability. While cure events impacted by these fluctuations occur early and are narrowly distributed, progression events occur late and are more widely distributed in time. We parameterized our model using population-level CAR T cell and tumour data over time and compare our predictions with progression-free survival rates. We find that therapy could be improved by optimizing the tumour-killing rate and the CAR T cells' ability to adapt, as quantified by their carrying capacity. Our tumour extinction model can be leveraged to examine why therapy works in some patients but not others, and to better understand the interplay of deterministic and stochastic effects on outcomes. For example, our model implies that LD before a second CAR T injection is necessary.
2024-09-02 | BIOMD0000001041 | BioModels