TY - JOUR
T1 - Aptamer-Engineered Natural Killer Cells for Cell-Specific Adaptive Immunotherapy
AU - Yang, Shuanghui
AU - Wen, Jianguo
AU - Li, Huan
AU - Xu, Ling
AU - Liu, Yanting
AU - Zhao, Nianxi
AU - Zeng, Zihua
AU - Qi, Jianjun
AU - Jiang, Wenqi
AU - Han, Wei
AU - Zu, Youli
N1 - Funding Information:
S.Y. and J.W. contributed equally to this work. The authors would like to thank Dr. Helen Chifotides and Dr. Sasha Pejerrey for their scientific editing of this paper. This study was partially supported by NIH grant R01 CA224304.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2019/5/29
Y1 - 2019/5/29
N2 - Natural killer (NK) cells are a key component of the innate immune system as they can attack cancer cells without prior sensitization. However, due to lack of cell-specific receptors, NK cells are not innately able to perform targeted cancer immunotherapy. Aptamers are short single-stranded oligonucleotides that specifically recognize their targets with high affinity in a similar manner to antibodies. To render NK cells with target-specificity, synthetic CD30-specific aptamers are anchored on cell surfaces to produce aptamer-engineered NK cells (ApEn-NK) without genetic alteration or cell damage. Under surface-anchored aptamer guidance, ApEn-NK specifically bind to CD30-expressing lymphoma cells but do not react to off-target cells. The resulting specific cell binding of ApEn-NK triggers higher apoptosis/death rates of lymphoma cells compared to parental NK cells. Additionally, experiments with primary human NK cells demonstrate the potential of ApEn-NK to specifically target and kill lymphoma cells, thus presenting a potential new approach for targeted immunotherapy by NK cells.
AB - Natural killer (NK) cells are a key component of the innate immune system as they can attack cancer cells without prior sensitization. However, due to lack of cell-specific receptors, NK cells are not innately able to perform targeted cancer immunotherapy. Aptamers are short single-stranded oligonucleotides that specifically recognize their targets with high affinity in a similar manner to antibodies. To render NK cells with target-specificity, synthetic CD30-specific aptamers are anchored on cell surfaces to produce aptamer-engineered NK cells (ApEn-NK) without genetic alteration or cell damage. Under surface-anchored aptamer guidance, ApEn-NK specifically bind to CD30-expressing lymphoma cells but do not react to off-target cells. The resulting specific cell binding of ApEn-NK triggers higher apoptosis/death rates of lymphoma cells compared to parental NK cells. Additionally, experiments with primary human NK cells demonstrate the potential of ApEn-NK to specifically target and kill lymphoma cells, thus presenting a potential new approach for targeted immunotherapy by NK cells.
KW - adaptive immunotherapy
KW - aptamer-engineering
KW - lymphoma
KW - natural killer (NK) cells
KW - oligonucleotide aptamers
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U2 - 10.1002/smll.201900903
DO - 10.1002/smll.201900903
M3 - Article
C2 - 31026116
AN - SCOPUS:85065048495
VL - 15
JO - Small
JF - Small
SN - 1613-6810
IS - 22
M1 - 1900903
ER -