Anti-tumor effects of vascular endothelial growth factor/vascular endothelial growth factor receptor binding domain-modified chimeric antigen receptor T cells

Background aims: The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)/vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) signaling pathway plays an important role in angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, which are closely related to tumor cell growth, survival, tissue infiltration and metastasis. Blocking/interfering with the interaction between VEGF and VEGFR to inhibit angiogenesis/lymphangiogenesis has become an important means of tumor therapy.

Methods: Here the authors designed a novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) lentiviral vector expressing the VEGF-C domain targeting both VEGFR-2 and VEGFR-3 (VEGFR-2/3 CAR) and then transduced CD3-positive T cells with VEGFR-2/3 CAR lentivirus.

Results: After co-culturing with target cells, VEGFR-2/3 CAR T cells showed potent cytotoxicity against both VEGFR-2- and VEGFR-3-positive breast Cancer cells, with increased simultaneous secretion of interferon gamma, tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin-2 cytokines. Moreover, CAR T cells were able to destroy the tubular structures formed by human umbilical vein endothelial cells and significantly inhibit the growth, infiltration and metastasis of orthotopic mammary xenograft tumors in a female BALB/c nude mice model.

Conclusions: The authors' results indicate that VEGFR-2/3 CAR T cells targeting both VEGFR-2 and VEGFR-3 have significant anti-tumor activity, which expands the application of conventional CAR T-cell therapy.