Development of next-generation adoptive immunotherapy using cytotoxic T-lymphocyte(CTL) expressing chimeric antigen-receptor(CAR)

Abstract

Adoptive immunotherapy, relying on the transfer of tumor-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) differentiated from CD8+ T cells of cancer patient, is autologous cell therapy attempting tumor regression and suppression of metastasis and recurrence. However, it is difficult to induce sufficient number of tumor-specific CTLs from most patients who are in immunosuppression. As a way out, development of the technique to create CTLs expressing chimeric antigen-receptor (CAR) is pushed forward. CAR comprises an extracellular target molecule recognition domain fused to a transmembrane domain and cytoplasmic signal transduction domain capable of modifying CTL function. Herein, we review trend of the CAR study and our next-generation adoptive immunotherapy using tumor vessel-specific CAR-expressing CTL.