Project description:Primary chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer (NK) cells show strong cytotoxic efficacy against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in vivo. However, NK cell-mediated tumor killing is often impaired by tumor-mediated immune cell inactivation. Here, we report a novel strategy to overcome NK cell inhibition caused by the immune checkpoint NKG2A, which interacts with HLA-E expressed on AML blasts. We generated AML-specific CD33-directed CAR (CAR33)-KLRC1ko-NK cells with CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing of the NKG2A-encoding KLRC1 gene. Single-cell multi-omic analyses revealed a higher proportion of activated cells in CAR33-NK- and CAR33-KLRC1ko-NK pools, which were preserved following AML-cell contact. This activated state of the CAR33-KLRC1ko-NK cells has been translated into improved antileukemic activity in vitro and in vivo against AML cell lines and primary blasts. This dual modification of primary NK cells has the potential to bypass the suppressive effect not only of AML but also in a broad range of other cancer identities.
Project description:Peripheral blood NK cells were cultured into either control or cytokine-induced memory-like NK cells as described in PMID: 32614951. After differentiation, cells were labeled with hashtag antibodies and cite-seq antibodies and control and memory-like NK cells were combined and loaded onto the 10x Genomics Chromium Instrument a the McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine. The following samples were analyzed to develop a classification tool for unbiased identification of memory-like NK cells in a bulk single-cell RNA-seq population.
Project description:The purpose of this experiment was two-fold. The first was to examine how the gene expression profile changes over time in C7R-CAR NK cells. C7R is a constitutively active IL-7 receptor that provides persistent activation of STAT5. The second was to examine the differential gene expression in C7R CAR NK cells or CAR NK treated with exogenous IL-15 (exIL15) after 2 weeks of stimulation.
Project description:We performed transcriptome sequencing on Neo-2/15 stimulated CAR NK cells,to shed light on the function and phenotype changes of CAR-NK cells stimulated by IL-2 and Neo-2/15.
Project description:Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) engineering of NK cells is an active area of research with early-phase clinical studies showing an excellent safety profile with encouraging clinical responses. However, the transcriptional signatures that control the fate of CAR-NK cell after infusion and their association with tumor control remain poorly understood. Here, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to depict the evolution of various engineered CAR-NK cells from the ex vivo infusion products to the in vivo peak phase of tumor control and finally to the relapse phase. Single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA) has revolutionized high-thoughout systems-based analysis of cellular and functional heterogeneity, and dynamic changes in the immune response during the anti-tumor immune cell therapy . The goals of this work are to compare transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) from both engrafted tumor cells and infused CAR-NK cells over time of treatment course to evaluate the kenetic of tumor cell response and effector functional change of CAR-NK cell. Our study represents the first detailed transcriptomic analysis of using CAR-NK cell therapy aganist Raji-engrafted mouse model. Collecting samples from different time points and organs, the data analysis reported here should privide an envision of the dynamic about how tumor response to immune cell therapy of using CAR-NK cells and also how immune effector fucntion of CAR-NK cell was modulated over time during the treatment courses.
Project description:To expedite immunotherapy development, better analysis of treatment efficacy at early in vitro stages is needed. Using a droplet-based microfluidic platform, we have established a method for multi-parameter quantifiable phenotypic and genomic observations of immunotherapies. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) NK cells provide treatment of interest in the current immunotherapy landscape and provide an optimal model for evaluating our novel methodology. For this approach, NK cells transduced with a CD19 CAR were compared to non-transduced NK cells in their ability to kill a lymphoma cell line. Using our novel single-cell droplet array platform, we quantified the increase in cytotoxicity and synaptic contact formation of CAR-NK cells over non-transduced NK cells. With our droplet sorter, we separated NK cells based on target cell killing for transcriptomic sequencing. Our data revealed expected improvement in cytotoxicity with the CD19 CAR but more importantly, provided unique insights into the factors involved in the cytotoxic mechanisms of CAR NK cells. This demonstrates a novel, improved system for immunotherapy screening.
Project description:We showed Cytokine induced memory-like (CIML) human NK cells have higher trasduction efficiency with CAR lentivirus for therapeutics. We performed single cell RNAseq analysis to comprehensively understand the transcripttion difference between NPM1c-CAR-mb15 CIML NK cells and CAR-negative CIML NK cells, as well as their transcriptional response to NPM1c+ AML tumor cells.
Project description:CAR-T cell therapy against MM currently shows promising results, but usually with serious toxicities. CAR-NK cells may exert less toxicity when redirected against resistant myeloma cells. CARs can be designed through the use of receptors, such as NKG2D, which recognizes a wide range of ligands to provide broad target specificity. Here, we test this approach by analyzing the anti-tumor activity of activated and expanded NK cells (NKAE) and CD45RA- T cells from MM patients that were engineered to express an NKG2D-based CAR. NKAE cells were cultured with irradiated Clone9.mbIL21 cells. Then, cells were transduced with an NKG2D-4-1BB-CD3z-CAR. CAR-NKAE cells exhibited no evidence of genetic abnormalities. Although memory T cells were more stably transduced, CAR-NKAE cells exhibited greater in vitro cytotoxicity against MM cells, while showing minimal activity against healthy cells. In vivo, CAR-NKAE cells mediated highly efficient abrogation of MM growth, and two of the treated mice remained disease-free. Overall, these results demonstrate that it is feasible to modify autologous NKAE cells from MM patients to safely express a NKG2D-CAR. Additionally, autologous CAR-NKAE cells display enhanced anti-myeloma activity demonstrating that they could be an effective strategy against MM supporting the development of NKG2D-CAR NK cell therapy for MM.