Genetic ablation of PRDM1 in antitumor T cells enhances therapeutic efficacy of adoptive immunotherapy.

Toshiaki Yoshikawa, Zhiwen Wu, Satoshi Inoue, Hitomi Kasuya, Hirokazu Matsushita, Yusuke Takahashi, Hiroaki Kuroda, Waki Hosoda, Shiro Suzuki, Yuki Kagoya

Blood 2022 Apr 07

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Adoptive cancer immunotherapy can induce objective clinical efficacy in patients with advanced cancer; however, a sustained response is achieved in a minority of cases. The persistence of infused T cells is an essential determinant of a durable therapeutic response. Antitumor T cells undergo a genome-wide remodeling of the epigenetic architecture upon repeated antigen encounters, which inevitably induces progressive T-cell differentiation and the loss of longevity. In this study, we identified PR domain zinc finger protein 1 (PRDM1) ie, Blimp-1, as a key epigenetic gene associated with terminal T-cell differentiation. The genetic knockout of PRDM1 by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) supported the maintenance of an early memory phenotype and polyfunctional cytokine secretion in repeatedly stimulated chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T cells. PRDM1 disruption promoted the expansion of less differentiated memory CAR-T cells in vivo, which enhanced T-cell persistence and improved therapeutic efficacy in multiple tumor models. Mechanistically, PRDM1-ablated T cells displayed enhanced chromatin accessibility of the genes that regulate memory formation, thereby leading to the acquisition of gene expression profiles representative of early memory T cells. PRDM1 knockout also facilitated maintaining an early memory phenotype and cytokine polyfunctionality in T-cell receptor-engineered T cells as well as tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. In other words, targeting PRDM1 enabled the generation of superior antitumor T cells, which is potentially applicable to a wide range of adoptive cancer immunotherapies. © 2022 by The American Society of Hematology.

Citation

Toshiaki Yoshikawa, Zhiwen Wu, Satoshi Inoue, Hitomi Kasuya, Hirokazu Matsushita, Yusuke Takahashi, Hiroaki Kuroda, Waki Hosoda, Shiro Suzuki, Yuki Kagoya. Genetic ablation of PRDM1 in antitumor T cells enhances therapeutic efficacy of adoptive immunotherapy. Blood. 2022 Apr 07;139(14):2156-2172