Leveraging Single-Cell Sequencing for Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell Therapies

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies against cancer continue to make inroads in the clinic. However, progress is still hindered by subpar efficacy against many tumors. Gaining a better understanding of CAR-induced T cell activation would help identify and remediate the causes of treatment failure. Increasingly, technologies to analyze the transcriptome are used to molecularly profile the behavior of CAR-T cells, both before and after treatment. Here, we describe recent work on how gene expression signatures, especially those obtained from single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), can be used to characterize CAR design, production conditions, therapy combinations, and finally disease outcome. In the future, scRNA-seq could become a standard tool for the development and clinical monitoring of CAR-T cell therapies.