1. Rational design of PD-1-CD28 immunostimulatory fusion proteins for CAR T cell therapy.
- Author
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Lorenzini, Theo, Cadilha, Bruno L., Obeck, Hannah, Benmebarek, Mohamed-Reda, Märkl, Florian, Michaelides, Stefanos, Strzalkowski, Thaddäus, Briukhovetska, Daria, Müller, Philipp Jie, Nandi, Sayantan, Winter, Pia, Majed, Lina, Grünmeier, Ruth, Seifert, Matthias, Rausch, Svenja, Feuchtinger, Tobias, Endres, Stefan, and Kobold, Sebastian
- Abstract
Background: In many situations, the therapeutic efficacy of CAR T cells is limited due to immune suppression and poor persistence. Immunostimulatory fusion protein (IFP) constructs have been advanced as a tool to convert suppressive signals into stimulation and thus promote the persistence of T cells, but no universal IFP design has been established so far. We now took advantage of a PD-1-CD28 IFP as a clinically relevant structure to define key determinants of IFP activity. Methods: We compared different PD-1-CD28 IFP variants in a human leukemia model to assess the impact of distinctive design choices on CAR T cell performance in vitro and a xenograft mouse model. Results: We observed that IFP constructs that putatively exceed the extracellular length of PD-1 induce T-cell response without CAR target recognition, rendering them unsuitable for tumour-specific therapy. IFP variants with physiological PD-1 length ameliorated CAR T cell effector function and proliferation in response to PD-L1
+ tumour cells in vitro and prolonged survival in vivo. Transmembrane or extracellular CD28 domains were found to be replaceable by corresponding PD-1 domains for in vivo efficacy. Conclusion: PD-1-CD28 IFP constructs must mimic the physiological interaction of PD-1 with PD-L1 to retain selectivity and mediate CAR-conditional therapeutic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2023
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