Open Access

ARTICLE

Pomalidomide improves the function of CD133- or HER2-specific CAR T cells

ZHIXIONG WANG^1,2, NA RISU², JIAYU FU², HUI LIU³, GUOMIN ZHOU³, QIAN LIU³, YAN ZOU⁴, JIAXING TANG⁴, LONG LI⁴, XUEKAI ZHU^4,*

1 Ma’anshan University, Ma’anshan, 243100, China
2 Division of Health Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan
3 School of Medical Instrument and Food Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, China
4 Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies (SIAIS), ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, 201210, China

* Address correspondence to: Xuekai Zhu,

BIOCELL 2021, 45(1), 157-165. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2021.010261

Received 21 February 2020; Accepted 30 July 2020; Issue published 26 January 2021

Abstract

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is mostly limited to hematological malignancies and has a poor effect on solid tumors. CAR T cells as a kind of immune cell may be affected by some immunomodulatory drugs such as pomalidomide, so the use of pomalidomide may improve the effect of CAR T cells on solid tumors. In this study, CD133- or HER2-specific CAR T cells were chosen to investigate whether pomalidomide can regulate the function of CAR T cells in vitro. We found that pomalidomide can significantly enhance the ability of CD133-CAR T cells and HER2-CAR T cells to kill tumor cells and increase the cytokine secretion of CD133-CAR T cells and HER2-CAR T cells. Also, pomalidomide was shown to induce down-regulation of protein levels of IL-2 transcriptional repressors Aiolos and Ikaros in CAR T cells. This study suggests that the combination of pomalidomide and CAR T cells may be a new strategy for the treatment of solid tumors.

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