A new CAR T system that targets brain tumors, making them nowhere to run

One of the prerequisites for successful treatment of brain cancer with T-cell immunotherapy is that engineered T-cells can enter brain tissue and come into contact with cancer cells, but clinical trials and basic studies have shown that this is difficult to achieve because there is a system in the brain called the blood-brain barrier that prevents T-cells from entering brain tissue.
An international team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine recently found that in inflammatory brain diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, endothroty cells in the brain's blood vessels increase the expression of IAM1 and VCAM1, which direct pre-inflammatory immune cells through blood vessels into the inflammatory parts of the brain. In the case of brain cancer, the tumor vascular endoderskin will lower these molecules to avoid immune identification, thus avoiding immune damage.
But the researchers found an unexpected phenomenon in which the tumor's endoders increase the expression of activated white blood cell adhesion molecules (activated leukocyte cell adhesion, ALCAM), which allows researchers to overcome this immune escape mechanism by creating an ALCAM-restricted homecoming system (homing system, HS).
researchers engineered ALCAM's natural liant CD6 to enhance its affinity with ALCAM, allowing active T cells in blood vessels to adhere to the tumor endoder through CD6's interaction with ALCAM, and then to complete a second adhesion by binding T cells to low levels of ICAM1 on the tumor endoder, which also creates a local micro-environment that allows T cells in the blood to be captured by the tumor endocys and penetrate into the tumor.
Through animal studies, researchers found that the cytotoxic HS T cells had a very strong ability to penetrate into brain tumor tissue after intravenous injection, showing strong anti-cancer activity without entering normal brain tissue or other tissues of the body causing toxic side effects.
the study found a new molecule that can target cytotoxic T lymphocytes to brain tumors, which will significantly advance cellular immunotherapy for brain tumors. The researchers say they will test the efficacy of the new treatment in clinical trials as soon as possible, and will use the system to diagnose or treat other diseases. (Bio Valley)