201. Revealing and harnessing CD39 for the treatment of colorectal cancer and liver metastases by engineered T cells.
- Author
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Potenza A, Balestrieri C, Spiga M, Albarello L, Pedica F, Manfredi F, Cianciotti BC, De Lalla C, Botrugno OA, Faccani C, Stasi L, Tassi E, Bonfiglio S, Scotti GM, Redegalli M, Biancolini D, Camisa B, Tiziano E, Sirini C, Casucci M, Iozzi C, Abbati D, Simeoni F, Lazarevic D, Elmore U, Fiorentini G, Di Lullo G, Casorati G, Doglioni C, Tonon G, Dellabona P, Rosati R, Aldrighetti L, Ruggiero E, and Bonini C
- Subjects
- Humans, Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, Cell Engineering, Colorectal Neoplasms pathology, Colorectal Neoplasms therapy, Liver Neoplasms secondary, Liver Neoplasms therapy, T-Lymphocytes, Apyrase genetics, Antigens, CD genetics
- Abstract
Objective: Colorectal tumours are often densely infiltrated by immune cells that have a role in surveillance and modulation of tumour progression but are burdened by immunosuppressive signals, which might vary from primary to metastatic stages. Here, we deployed a multidimensional approach to unravel the T-cell functional landscape in primary colorectal cancers (CRC) and liver metastases, and genome editing tools to develop CRC-specific engineered T cells., Design: We paired high-dimensional flow cytometry, RNA sequencing and immunohistochemistry to describe the functional phenotype of T cells from healthy and neoplastic tissue of patients with primary and metastatic CRC and we applied lentiviral vectors (LV) and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technologies to develop CRC-specific cellular products., Results: We found that T cells are mainly localised at the front edge and that tumor-infiltrating T cells co-express multiple inhibitory receptors, which largely differ from primary to metastatic sites. Our data highlighted CD39 as the major driver of exhaustion in both primary and metastatic colorectal tumours. We thus simultaneously redirected T-cell specificity employing a novel T-cell receptor targeting HER-2 and disrupted the endogenous TCR genes (TCR editing (TCR
ED )) and the CD39 encoding gene ( ENTPD1 ), thus generating TCRED ENTPD1KO HER-2-redirected lymphocytes. We showed that the absence of CD39 confers to HER-2-specific T cells a functional advantage in eliminating HER-2+ patient-derived organoids in vitro and in vivo ., Conclusion: HER-2-specific CD39 disrupted engineered T cells are promising advanced medicinal products for primary and metastatic CRC., Competing Interests: Competing interests: CBo has been member of Advisory Board and Consultant for Intellia, TxCell, Novartis, GSK, Allogene, Kite/Gilead, Kiadis, Evir, Janssen, Genyo, Epsilen and received research support from Intellia Therapeutics. AP, PDB, GC, ER, BCC and CBo are inventors on different patents on cancer immunotherapy and genetic engineering., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)- Published
- 2023
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