Automated generation of gene-edited CAR T cells at clinical scale

Autor: Jamal Alzubi, Dominik Lock, Manuel Rhiel, Sabrina Schmitz, Stefan Wild, Claudio Mussolino, Markus Hildenbeutel, Caroline Brandes, Julia Rositzka, Simon Lennartz, Simone A. Haas, Kay O. Chmielewski, Thomas Schaser, Andrew Kaiser, Toni Cathomen, Tatjana I. Cornu
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Molecular Therapy: Methods & Clinical Development, Vol 20, Iss , Pp 379-388 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2329-0501
DOI: 10.1016/j.omtm.2020.12.008
Popis: The potential of adoptive cell therapy can be extended when combined with genome editing. However, variation in the quality of the starting material and the different manufacturing steps are associated with production failure and product contamination. Here, we present an automated T cell engineering process to produce off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells on an extended CliniMACS Prodigy platform containing an in-line electroporation unit. This setup was used to combine lentiviral delivery of a CD19-targeting CAR with transfer of mRNA encoding a TRAC locus-targeting transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN). In three runs at clinical scale, the T cell receptor (TCR) alpha chain encoding TRAC locus was disrupted in >35% of cells with high cell viability (>90%) and no detectable off-target activity. A final negative selection step allowed the generation of TCRα/β-free CAR T cells with >99.5% purity. These CAR T cells proliferated well, maintained a T cell memory phenotype, eliminated CD19-positive tumor cells, and released the expected cytokines when exposed to B cell leukemia cells. In conclusion, we established an automated, good manufacturing practice (GMP)-compliant process that integrates lentiviral transduction with electroporation of TALEN mRNA to produce functional TCRα/β-free CAR19 T cells at clinical scale.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals