Viral and Nonviral Engineering of Natural Killer Cells as Emerging Adoptive Cancer Immunotherapies.

Viral and Nonviral Engineering of Natural Killer Cells as Emerging Adoptive Cancer Immunotherapies. J Immunol Res. 2018;2018:4054815 Authors: Matosevic S Abstract Natural killer (NK) cells are powerful immune effectors whose antitumor activity is regulated through a sophisticated network of activating and inhibitory receptors. As effectors of cancer immunotherapy, NK cells are attractive as they do not attack healthy self-tissues nor do they induce T cell-driven inflammatory cytokine storm, enabling their use as allogeneic adoptive cellular therapies. Clinical responses to adoptive NK-based immunotherapy have been thwarted, however, by the profound immunosuppression induced by the tumor microenvironment, particularly severe in the context of solid tumors. In addition, the short postinfusion persistence of NK cells in vivo has limited their clinical efficacy. Enhancing the antitumor immunity of NK cells through genetic engineering has been fueled by the promise that impaired cytotoxic functionality can be restored or augmented with the use of synthetic genetic approaches. Alongside expressing chimeric antigen receptors to overcome immune escape by cancer cells, enhance their recognition, and mediate their killing, NK cells have been genetically modified to enhance their persistence in vivo by the expression of cytokines such as IL-15, avoid functional and metabolic tumor microenvironment suppression, or improve their homing ability, e...
Source: Journal of Immunology Research - Category: Allergy & Immunology Tags: J Immunol Res Source Type: research