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Abstract Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment with the advent of advanced cell engineering techniques aimed at targeted therapy with reduced systemic toxicity. However, understanding the underlying immune–cancer interactions require development of advanced three-dimensional (3D) models of human tissues. In this study, we fabricated 3D tumor models with increasing complexity to study the cytotoxic responses of CD8 + T cells, genetically engineered to express mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cell receptors, towards MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells. Homotypic MDA-MB-231 and heterotypic MDA-MB-231/human dermal fibroblast tumor spheroids were primed with precursor MAIT cell ligand 5-amino-6-D-ribitylaminouracil (5-ARU). Engineered T cells effectively eliminated tumors after a 3 d culture period, demonstrating that the engineered T cell receptor recognized major histocompatibility complex class I-related (MR1) protein expressing tumor cells in the presence of 5-ARU. Tumor cell killing efficiency of engineered T cells were also assessed by encapsulating these cells in fibrin, mimicking a tumor extracellular matrix microenvironment. Expression of proinflammatory cytokines such as interferon gamma, interleukin-13, CCL-3 indicated immune cell activation in all tumor models, post immunotherapy. Further, in corroborating the cytotoxic activity, we found that granzymes A and B were also upregulated, in homotypic as well as heterotypic tumors. Finally, a 3D bioprinted tumor model was employed to study the effect of localization of T cells with respect to tumors. T cells bioprinted proximal to the tumor had reduced invasion index and increased cytokine secretion, which indicated a paracrine mode of immune–cancer interaction. Development of 3D tumor-T cell platforms may enable studying the complex immune–cancer interactions and engineering MAIT cells for cell-based cancer immunotherapies.
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Chemotherapeutics and CAR‐T Cell‐Based Immunotherapeutics Screening on a 3D Bioprinted Vascularized Breast Tumor Model
Abstract Despite substantial advancements in development of cancer treatments, lack of standardized and physiologically‐relevant in vitro testing platforms limit the early screening of anticancer agents. A major barrier is the complex interplay between the tumor microenvironment and immune response. To tackle this, a dynamic‐flow based 3D bioprinted multi‐scale vascularized breast tumor model, responding to chemo and immunotherapeutics is developed. Heterotypic tumors are precisely bioprinted at pre‐defined distances from a perfused vasculature, exhibit tumor angiogenesis and cancer cell invasion into the perfused vasculature. Bioprinted tumors treated with varying dosages of doxorubicin for 72 h portray a dose‐dependent drug response behavior. More importantly, a cell based immune therapy approach is explored by perfusing HER2‐targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) modified CD8+T cells for 24 or 72 h. Extensive CAR‐T cell recruitment to the endothelium, substantial T cell activation and infiltration to the tumor site, resulted in up to ≈70% reduction in tumor volumes. The presented platform paves the way for a robust, precisely fabricated, and physiologically‐relevant tumor model for future translation of anti‐cancer therapies to personalized medicine.
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- PAR ID:
- 10373127
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Volume:
- 32
- Issue:
- 52
- ISSN:
- 1616-301X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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