T-cell Receptors Targeting CD20-Positive Lymphomas and Leukemias
CD20 is a protein expressed by wide ranges of lymphoid malignancies originating from B cells but not by indispensable normal tissues, making it an attractive target for therapies such as T-cell receptor (TCR) therapy. Current anti-CD20 therapeutics face a number of limitations. The most important limitation to current anti-CD20 therapies include cancer cells becoming resistant to the therapy. Resistance mechanisms to the existing CD20 therapies include loss of target antigen expression from the cell surface, loss of antibody epitope, or modulation of antibody epitope – all of which make the malignant cells “invisible” to antibodies. Importantly, these resistance mechanisms do not affect TCR-mediated target recognition. Epitopes for TCRs are short fragments of peptides that are processed intracellularly and presented in the context of major histocompatibili ty complex. Thus, TCRs can recognize and kill leukemia and lymphoma that are no longer “visible” to existing antibodies. Investigators at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have developed a collection of novel anti-CD20 TCRs that can be used to treat CD20 positive lymphomas and leukemias. These novel TCRs can recognize and exert cell killing against CD20-derived epitopes even when the target protein escapes surface expression and remains in a sub-cellular compartment, such as endoplasmic reticulum or cytoplasm. These characteristics of the novel anti-CD20 TCRs allow them to overcome known resistance mechanisms a...
Source: NIH OTT Licensing Opportunities - Category: Research Authors: ott-admin Source Type: research
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