Tandem incorporation of a novel DAP10 chimeric receptor T cells to overcome tumor heterogeneity

Although chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cells have achieved remarkable successes in hematological malignancies, the efficacies of CAR-T cells against solid tumors remains unsatisfactory. Heterogeneous antigen expression is one of the obstacles on its effective elimination of solid cancer cells. DNAX-activating protein 10 (DAP10) interacts with natural killer group 2D (NKG2D), acting as an adaptor, which targeting various of malignant cells for surveillance. Here, we designed a DAP10 chimeric receptor that utilized native NKG2D on T cells to target NKG2D ligand-expressing cancer cells. We then tandemly incorporated it with glypican 3 (GPC3) scFv thus to construct a dual-antigen targeting system. T cells expressing DAP10 chimeric receptor (DAP10-T cells) displayed with an enhancement on both cytotoxicity and cytokine secretion against solid cancer cell lines, and its tandem connection with GPC3 scFv (CAR GPC3-DAP10-T cells) exhibited a dual-antigen targeting capacity on eliminating heterogeneous cancer cells in vitro and suppressing the growth of heterogeneous cancer in vivo. Thus, this novel dual-targeting system enabled a high efficacy on killing cancer cells and extended the recognition profile of CAR-T towards tumors, which providing a potential strategy on treatment of solid cancer clinically.