Lipid nanoparticles produce chimeric antigen receptor T cells with interleukin-6 knockdown in vivo

作者:Zhou, Jing-e; Sun, Lei; Jia, Yujie; Wang, Zhehao; Luo, Tengshuo; Tan, Jingwen; Fang, Xiaoyan; Zhu, Hongjia; Wang, Jing; Yu, Lei*; Yan, Zhiqiang*
来源:Journal of Controlled Release, 2022, 350: 298-307.
DOI:10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.08.033

摘要

Chimeric receptor T cells (CAR-T) can effectively cure leukemia; however, there are two limitations: a complicated preparation process ex vivo and cytokine release syndrome (CRS). In this study, we constructed a lipid nanoparticle system modified by CD3 antibody on the surface, loading with the plasmid containing the combination gene of interleukin 6 short hairpin RNA (IL-6 shRNA) and CD19-CAR (AntiCD3-LNP/CAR19 + shIL6). The system targeted T cells by the mediation of CD3 antibody and stably transfected T cells to transform them into CAR-T cells with IL-6 knockdown, thus killing CD19-highly expressed leukemia tumor cells and reducing CRS caused by IL-6. In vivo experiments showed that AntiCD3-LNP/CAR19 + shIL6 could stably transfect T cells and produce CAR-T within 90 days to kill the tumor. This significantly prolonged the survival time of leukemia model mice and demonstrated the prepared LNP exhibited the same anti-tumor effect as the traditional CAR-T cells prepared ex vivo. In this study, CAR-T cells were directly produced in vivo after intravenous injection of the lipid nanoparticles, without the need of using the current complex process ex vivo. Additionally, IL-6 expression was silenced, which would be helpful to reduce the CRS and improve the safety of CAR-T therapy. This method improves the convenience of using CAR-T technology and is helpful in further promoting the clinical application of CAR-T.