Applications and opportunities for immune cell CAR engineering in comparative oncology

Clin Cancer Res. 2024 Apr 4. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-23-3690. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTChimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T adoptive cell therapy has transformed the treatment of human hematologic malignancies. However, its application for the treatment of solid tumors remains challenging. An exciting avenue for advancing this field lies in the use of pet dogs, in which cancers that recapitulate the biology, immunological features, and clinical course of human malignancies arise spontaneously. Moreover, their large size, outbred genetic background, shared environment with humans, and immunocompetency make dogs ideal for investigating and optimizing CAR therapies before human trials. Here, we will outline how challenges in early clinical trials in canine lymphoma patients, including issues related to autologous CAR-T cell manufacturing, limited CAR-T cell persistence, and tumor antigen escape, mirrored challenges observed in human CAR-T trials. We will then highlight emerging adoptive cell therapy strategies currently under investigation in dogs with hematological and solid cancers, that will provide crucial safety and efficacy data on novel CAR-T regimens that can be used to support clinical trials. By drawing from ongoing studies, we will illustrate how canine patients with spontaneous cancer may serve as compelling screening platforms to establish innovative CAR-therapy approaches and identify predictive biomarkers of response, with a specific emphasis on solid tumors....
Source: Clinical Cancer Research - Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Source Type: research