Back to Search Start Over

High-throughput method to analyze the cytotoxicity of CAR-T Cells in a 3D tumor spheroid model using image cytometry

Authors :
David Zurowski
Samir Patel
Daniel Hui
Mignane Ka
Charles Hernandez
Andrea C. Love
Bo Lin
Andrea Moore
Leo Li-Ying Chan
Source :
SLAS Discovery, Vol 28, Iss 3, Pp 65-72 (2023)
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
Elsevier, 2023.

Abstract

Solid tumors account for approximately 90% of all adult human cancers. As such, the development of novel cellular therapies has become of increasing importance to target solid tumor malignancies, such as prostate, lung, breast, bladder, colon, and liver cancers. One such cellular therapy relies on the use of chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T cells). CAR-T cells are engineered to target specific antigens on tumor cells. To date, there are six FDA-approved CAR-T cell therapies that have been utilized for hematologic B cell malignancies. Immune cell trafficking and immunosuppressive factors within the tumor microenvironment increase the relative difficulty in developing a robust CAR-T cell therapy against solid tumors. Therefore, it is critical to develop novel methodologies for high-throughput phenotypic and functional assays using 3D tumor spheroid models to assess CAR-T cell products against solid tumors. In this manuscript, we discuss the use of CAR-T cells targeted towards PSMA, an antigen that is found on prostate cancer tumor cells, the second most common cause of cancer deaths among men worldwide. We demonstrate the use of high-throughput, plate-based image cytometry to characterize CAR-T cell-mediated cytotoxic potency against 3D prostate tumor spheroids. We were able to kinetically evaluate the efficacy and therapeutic value of PSMA CAR-T cells by analyzing the cytotoxicity against prostate tumor spheroids. In addition, the CAR-T cells were fluorescently labeled to visually identify the location of the T cells as cytotoxicity occurs, which may provide more meaningful information for assessing the functionality of the CAR-T cells. The proposed image cytometry method can overcome limitations placed on traditional methodologies to effectively assess cell-mediated 3D tumor spheroid cytotoxicity and efficiently generate time- and dose-dependent results.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
24725552
Volume :
28
Issue :
3
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
SLAS Discovery
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.f887480d688432bbe77fa082a448b37
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.slasd.2023.01.008