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Abstract With six therapies approved by the Food and Drug Association, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells have reshaped cancer immunotherapy. However, these therapies rely on ex vivo viral transduction to induce permanent CAR expression in T cells, which contributes to high production costs and long‐term side effects. Thus, this work aims to develop an in vivo CAR T cell engineering platform to streamline production while using mRNA to induce transient, tunable CAR expression. Specifically, an ionizable lipid nanoparticle (LNP) is utilized as these platforms have demonstrated clinical success in nucleic acid delivery. Though LNPs often accumulate in the liver, the LNP platform used here achieves extrahepatic transfection with enhanced delivery to the spleen, and it is further modified via antibody conjugation (Ab‐LNPs) to target pan‐T cell markers. The in vivo evaluation of these Ab‐LNPs confirms that targeting is necessary for potent T cell transfection. When using these Ab‐LNPs for the delivery of CAR mRNA, antibody and dose‐dependent CAR expression and cytokine release are observed along with B cell depletion of up to 90%. In all, this work conjugates antibodies to LNPs with extrahepatic tropism, evaluates pan‐T cell markers, and develops Ab‐LNPs capable of generating functional CAR T cells in vivo.
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Oxidized mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles for In Situ Chimeric Antigen Receptor Monocyte Engineering
Abstract Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) monocyte and macrophage therapies are promising solid tumor immunotherapies that can overcome the challenges facing conventional CAR T cell therapy. mRNA lipid nanoparticles (mRNA‐LNPs) offer a viable platform for in situ engineering of CAR monocytes with transient and tunable CAR expression to reduce off‐tumor toxicity and streamline cell manufacturing. However, identifying LNPs with monocyte tropism and intracellular delivery potency is difficult using traditional screening techniques. Here, ionizable lipid design and high‐throughput in vivo screening are utilized to identify a new class of oxidized LNPs with innate tropism and mRNA delivery to monocytes. A library of oxidized (oLNPs) and unoxidized LNPs (uLNPs) is synthesized to evaluate mRNA delivery to immune cells. oLNPs demonstrate notable differences in morphology, ionization energy, and pKa, thereby enhancing delivery to human macrophages, but not T cells. Subsequently, in vivo library screening with DNA barcodes identifies an oLNP formulation, C14‐O2, with innate tropism to monocytes. In a proof‐of‐concept study, the C14‐O2 LNP is used to engineer functional CD19‐CAR monocytes in situ for robust B cell aplasia (45%) in healthy mice. This work highlights the utility of oxidized LNPs as a promising platform for engineering CAR macrophages/monocytes for solid tumor CAR monocyte therapy.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2145491
- PAR ID:
- 10494976
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 27
- ISSN:
- 1616-301X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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