Cancer immunotherapy based on the engineering of chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) on T cells has emerged as one of the most promising new therapies for patients with B-cell malignancies. Preclinical assessments of essential CAR T cell functions such as trafficking and cytotoxicity are critical for accelerating the development of highly effective therapeutic candidates. However, current tools for evaluating CAR-T functions lack sufficient precision. Here, a micropatterned tumor array (MiTA) is described that enables detailed and dynamic characterization of CAR T cell trafficking toward tumor-cell islands and subsequent killing of tumor cells. It is shown that CAR T cells often merge into large clusters that envelop and kill the tumor cells with high efficiency. Significant differences are also measured between CAR T cells from different donors and between various CAR T cell constructs. Overall, the assay allows for multifaceted, dynamic, high-content evaluation of CAR T trafficking, clustering, and killing and could eventually become a useful tool for immune-oncology research and preclinical assessments of cell-based immunotherapies.
Keywords: CAR T cells; cancer immunotherapy; high‐content screening technology; micropatterned cell array.
© 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.