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Today, cancer treatment is one of the fundamental problems facing clinicians and researchers worldwide. Efforts to find an excellent way to treat this illness continue, and new therapeutic strategies are developed quickly. Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) is a practical approach that has been emerged to improve clinical outcomes in cancer patients. In the ACT, one of the best ways to arm the immune cells against tumors is by employing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) via genetic engineering. CAR equips cells to target specific antigens on tumor cells and selectively eradicate them. Researchers have achieved promising preclinical and clinical outcomes with different cells by using CARs. One of the potent immune cells that seems to be a good candidate for CAR-immune cell therapy is the Natural Killer-T (NKT) cell. NKT cells have multiple features that make them potent cells against tumors and would be a powerful replacement for T cells and natural killer (NK) cells. NKT cells are cytotoxic immune cells with various capabilities and no notable side effects on normal cells. The current study aimed to comprehensively provide the latest advances in CAR-NKT cell therapy for cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T (CAR-T) cells have obtained prominent achievement in the clinical immunotherapy of hematological malignant tumors, leading to a rapid development of cellular immunotherapy in cancer treatment. Scientists are also aware of the prospective advantages of CAR engineering in cellular immunotherapy. Due to various limitations such as the serious side effects of CAR-T therapy, researchers began to investigate other immune cells for CAR modification. Natural killer (NK) cells are critical innate immune cells with the characteristic of non-specifically recognizing target cells and with the potential to become "off-the-shelf" products. In recent years, many preclinical studies on CAR-engineered NK (CAR-NK) cells have shown their remarkable efficacy in cancer therapy and their superiority over autologous CAR-T cells. In this review, we summarize the generation, mechanisms of anti-tumor activity and unique advantages of CAR-NK cells, and then analyze some challenges and recent clinical trials about CAR-NK cells therapy. We believe that CAR-NK therapy is a promising prospect for cancer immunotherapy in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cell-based cancer immunotherapy, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) engineered T and natural killer (NK) cell therapies, has become a revolutionary new pillar in cancer treatment. Interleukin 15 (IL-15), a potent immunostimulatory cytokine that potentiates T and NK cell immune responses, has demonstrated the reliability and potency to potentially improve the therapeutic efficacy of current cell therapy. Structurally similar to interleukin 2 (IL-2), IL-15 supports the persistence of CD8+ memory T cells while inhibiting IL-2-induced T cell death that better maintains long-term anti-tumor immunity. In this review, we describe the biology of IL-15, studies on administrating IL-15 and/or its derivatives as immunotherapeutic agents, and IL-15-armored immune cells in adoptive cell therapy. We also discuss the advantages and challenges of incorporating IL-15 in cell-based immunotherapy and provide directions for future investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)‐T‐cell therapy is a promising anticancer treatment that exploits the host's immune system to fight cancer. CAR‐T cell therapy relies on immune cells being modified to express an artificial receptor targeting cancer‐specific markers, and infused into the patients where they will recognize and eliminate the tumour. Although CAR‐T cell therapy has produced encouraging outcomes in patients with haematologic malignancies, solid tumours remain challenging to treat, mainly due to the lack of cancer‐specific molecular targets and the hostile, often immunosuppressive, tumour microenvironment. CAR‐T cell therapy also depends on the quality of the injected product, which is closely connected to CAR design. Here, we explain the technology of CAR‐Ts, focusing on the composition of CARs, their application, and limitations in cancer therapy, as well as on the current strategies to overcome the challenges encountered. We also address potential future targets to overcome the flaws of CAR‐T cell technology in the treatment of cancer, emphasizing glycan antigens, the aberrant forms of which attain high tumour‐specific expression, as promising targets for CAR‐T cell therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer immunotherapies can be classified into agents that amplify natural immune responses (e.g., checkpoint inhibitors) versus synthetic immunotherapies designed to initiate new responses (e.g., monoclonal antibodies [mAbs], chimeric antigen receptors [CARs]). Checkpoint inhibitors mediate unprecedented benefit in some adult cancers, but have not demonstrated significant activity in pediatric cancers, likely due their paucity of neoantigens. In contrast, synthetic immunotherapies such as mAbs and CAR T cells demonstrate impressive effects against childhood cancers. Intense efforts are underway to enhance the effectiveness of pediatric cancer immunotherapies through improved engineering of synthetic immunotherapies and by combining these with agents designed to amplify immune responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]