A New Approach to CAR-T?

The journal Nature Communications published an article last week called "CXCR5 CAR-T cells simultaneously target B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and tumor-supportive follicular T helper cells." It describes some early research from Germany on a new approach to using CAR-T. 

I won't give too much background on CAR-T, other than to remind you that this is a good site to visit to find out more about CAR-T and Follicular Lymphoma.

CAR-T works by using CD19 as a target. CD19 is a protein on the surface of many blood cells, including the cells that cause FL. When T cells are removed and "retrained" to recognize cancer cells, it's the CD19 protein that they go after. As the researchers point out, it's a successful target for CAR-T much of the time, but not always.

They found that there is another potential target -- a different protein called CXCR5. This protein is very important for those B cells, as well as some T cells that help some cancers stay alive. 

CXCR5 is kind of cool. When a blood cancer cells is developed in the bone marrow, CXCR5 helps guide them to the lymph nodes and the spleen, where they gather to help fight off invaders. Of course, when the cells become cancerous and refuse to die, they just hang out in the lymph nodes, causing them to swell up and make us panic. (Same thing happens in the spleen, which is common for some stage 4 Follicular Lymphoma patients, and the reason your oncologist pokes and feels around your belly at visits. He's not challenging you to a tickle fight.)

So CXCR5 makes sense as a target.

The researchers have found a way to develop CAR-T cells that target CXCR5 instead of CD19. It's going after the same cells as current CAR-T treatments, and would be created using the same process (removing T cells from the body and teaching them to find the cancer B cells), but would use a different target.

The The Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), where the researchers work, actually put out a really nice press release on the research. Very well-written and clear, which isn't always the case with this kind of thing.

Important to note -- this is very early research. They've done some work in a test tube, and using mice, but it hasn't yet been tried on humans. They hope to get some clinical trials going soon. So even if it's successful, it could be a while before it's widely used. 

Still, I'm always up for a shot of hope, especially in these dark winter days.