Construction and Pre-Clinical Evaluation of A New Anti-Cd19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor

Relapsed and refractory B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia remain the leading cause of cancer related death in children and young adults. Clinical studies of adoptive cell immunotherapy, re-directing T cells against CD19 by endowing them with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), have shown considerable clinical responses. To date, 3 different binding domains (scFv) targeting CD19 have been used in CARs taken forward in clinical trials and we have constructed a new CD19-CAR, derived from a different anti-human CD19 antibody, clone CAT. Whether different binding affinities of the CD19 targeting domain, when significantly different, could affect CAR-mediated T cell functionality has not been evaluated in depth. We therefore investigated the impact of scFv affinity on CAR-mediated T cell function in vitro, as well as on anti-tumour efficacy in vivo.