Bispecific T-Cell Engagers Therapies in Solid Tumors: Focusing on Prostate Cancer

Cancers (Basel). 2023 Feb 23;15(5):1412. doi: 10.3390/cancers15051412.

Abstract

Over the past decade, immunotherapy has demonstrated an impressive improvement in treatment outcomes for multiple cancers. Following the landmark approvals for use of immune checkpoint inhibitors, new challenges emerged in various clinical settings. Not all tumor types harbor immunogenic characteristics capable of triggering responses. Similarly, many tumors' immune microenvironment allows them to become evasive, leading to resistance and, thus, limiting the durability of responses. To overcome this limitation, new T-cell redirecting strategies such as bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) have become attractive and promising immunotherapies. Our review provides a comprehensive perspective of the current evidence of BiTE therapies in solid tumors. Considering that immunotherapy has shown modest results in advanced prostate cancer to date, we review the biologic rationale and promising results of BiTE therapy in this clinical setting and discuss potential tumor-associated antigens that may be integrated into BiTE construct designs. Our review also aims to evaluate the advances of BiTE therapies in prostate cancer, illustrate the major obstacles and underlying limitations, and discuss directions for future research.

Keywords: bispecific T-cell engagers; immunotherapy; prostate cancer; prostate stem cell antigen; prostate-specific membrane antigen.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.