Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells demonstrate remarkable success in treating hematological malignancies, but their effectiveness in non-hematopoietic cancers remains limited. This study proposes enhancing CAR T cell function and localization in solid tumors by modifying the epigenome governing tissue-residency adaptation and early memory differentiation. We identify that a key factor in human tissue-resident memory CAR T cell (CAR-TRM) formation is activation in the presence of the pleotropic cytokine, transforming growth factor β (TGF-β), which enforces a core program of both "stemness" and sustained tissue residency by mediating chromatin remodeling and concurrent transcriptional changes. This approach leads to a practical and clinically actionable in vitro production method for engineering peripheral blood T cells into a large number of "stem-like" CAR-TRM cells resistant to tumor-associated dysfunction, possessing an enhanced ability to accumulate in situ and rapidly eliminate cancer cells for more effective immunotherapy.
Keywords: CAR T-cells3; chimeric antigen receptor; epigenetic modification; hematological malignancies; immunotherapy; memory differentiation; non-hematopoietic cancers; solid tumors; tissue residency; transforming growth factor-β.
Published by Elsevier Inc.