NK Cells Armed with Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CAR): Roadblocks to Successful Development

Abstract

In recent years, cell-based immunotherapies have demonstrated promising results in the treatment of cancer. Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) arm effector cells with a weapon for targeting tumor antigens, licensing engineered cells to recognize and kill cancer cells. The quality of the CAR-antigen interaction strongly depends on the selected tumor antigen and its expression density on cancer cells. CD19 CAR-engineered T cells approved by the Food and Drug Administration have been most frequently applied in the treatment of hematological malignancies. Clinical challenges in their application primarily include cytokine release syndrome, neurological symptoms, severe inflammatory responses, and/or other off-target effects most likely mediated by cytotoxic T cells. As a consequence, there remains a significant medical need for more potent technology platforms leveraging cell-based approaches with enhanced safety profiles. A promising population that has been advanced is the natural killer (NK) cell, which can also be engineered with CARs. NK cells which belong to the innate arm of the immune system recognize and kill virally infected cells as well as (stressed) cancer cells in a major histocompatibility complex I independent manner. NK cells play an important role in the host's immune defense against cancer due to their specialized lytic mechanisms which include death receptor (i.e., Fas)/death receptor ligand (i.e., Fas ligand) and granzyme B/perforin-mediated apoptosis, and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, as well as their immunoregulatory potential via cytokine/chemokine release. To develop and implement a highly effective CAR NK cell-based therapy with low side effects, the following three principles which are specifically addressed in this review have to be considered: unique target selection, well-designed CAR, and optimized gene delivery.

Keywords: chimeric antigen receptor; gene delivery; immunotherapy; natural killer cells; tumor antigen.

Figure 1

Schematic illustration of the first, second and third generations of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), sources of natural killer (NK) cells for genetic modifications with CARs, and CAR NK cell-based immunotherapy. Abbreviations: PB, peripheral blood; UCB, umbilical cord blood; hESC, human embryonic stem cell; hiPSC, human induced pluripotent stem cell.

Figure 2

A schematic illustration of the viral and non-viral methods for CAR structure delivery to NK cells.