Your new post is loading...
Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy--CAR T--has revolutionized leukemia treatment. Unfortunately, the therapy has not been effective for treating solid tumors including childhood cancers such as neuroblastoma.
|
Scooped by BigField GEG Tech |
Scoop.it!
No comment yet.
Sign up to comment
The development of CAR T cells has facilitated the treatment of blood tumours. Furthermore, this therapy is not effective against solid tumours such as neuroblastoma and has even revealed toxic effects which are due to the fact that most of the antigens that cancerous tissue has on its surface are also found in healthy tissue. However, a group of scientists at Los Angeles Children's Hospital has developed a modified version of CAR T cells that looks promising for targeting neuroblastoma based on the pre-clinical phases. Their study was published in Nature Communications. The researchers used a new CAR T technology called Synthetic Notch (synNotch). SynNotch CAR T cells have a unique property. The special synNotch protein is designed to recognize the GD2 antigen. When it does, this protein instructs the cell to activate its CAR T properties, allowing it to recognize a second antigen: B7H3. By following these specific instructions, cells can only kill cells with both antigens and therefore mostly cancer cells. This triggering property minimizes toxicity because healthy cells will sometimes have low levels of one of the antigens but never both.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20785-x