Role of the activation gate in determining the extracellular potassium dependency of block of HERG by trapped drugs, Channels, 7:1, 23-33,

Off-the-shelf CAR T cells could offer advantages over autologous strategies, including ease of manufacturing, quality control and avoidance of malignant contamination and T cell dysfunction. TCR editing can effectively prevent graft-versus-host reactions. However, the vigorous host-versus-graft immune response against histoincompatible T cells prevents expansion and persistence of allogeneic CAR T cells and mitigates the efficacy of this approach. A major challenge is that, while HLA deletion can result in adaptive immune evasion, innate reactivity is enhanced. CD47 overexpression can block both NK cell and macrophage killing (J Exp Med (2021) 218 (3): e20200839), and we hypothesized that T cells would lose their immunogenicity when human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and II genes are inactivated and CD47 is over-expressed. We describe here the engineering of human immune evasive CAR T cells based on our previously described hypoimmune technology. Human T cells from healthy donors were obtained by leukapheresis. CRISPR/Cas9 technology was used to delete b2m, CIITA, and TCR and lentiviral transduction to overexpress CD47 and CD19CAR. Control T cells were unmanipulated except for overexpression of CD19CAR containing a 41BB costimulatory domain. When transplanted into allogeneic humanized mice, hypoimmunogenic HLA-I/II- TCR- CD47+ CD19CAR+ T cells evade immune recognition by T and B cells compared to CD19CAR+ T cells generated from the same human donor using ELISPOT and flow cytometry analysis. Innate immune cell assays show that CD47 overexpression protects HLA-I/II deficient CAR T cells from NK cell and macrophage killing in vitro and in vivo. Relative CD47 expression levels were analyzed to understand the relevance of CD47 for protection from macrophage and NK cell killing. A blocking antibody against CD47 made the hypoimmunogenic CAR T cells susceptible to macrophage and NK cell killing, confirming the importance of CD47 overexpression to evade innate immune clearance. The use of CD47 blocking could additionally be envisioned as a safety strategy for our hypoimmunogenic CAR T cells. Neither isolated CD47 overexpression nor all three hypoimmune modifications or knockout of the TCR showed any effect on the cytotoxic potential of CAR+ T cells. Hypoimmune CAR+ T cells retain their antitumor activity in the Nalm-6 B cell leukemia model in vitro and clear leukemic cells in NSG mice across a range of tumor cell: CAR T cell ratios comparable to unmodified CAR T cells. These findings show that hypoimmunogenic CAR T cells are functionally immune evasive in allogeneic recipients with cytotoxic anti-tumor capacity and suggest they could provide universal CAR T cells that is able to persist without immunosuppression. Blocking CD47 could additionally serve as safety strategy for our hypoimmunogenic CAR T cells. Citation Format: Xiaomeng Hu, Mo Dao, Kathy White, Ryan Clarke, Sam Landry, Ron Basco, Corie Gattis, Eleonore Tham, Emily Luo, Andrew Tucker, Christopher Bandoro, Elaine Chu, Junmo Kim, Chi Young, William E. Dowdle, Edward J. Rebar, Terry J. Fry, Sonja Schrepfer. Overexpression of CD47 protects hypoimmune CAR T cells from innate immune cell killing [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr LB144.

rectification. A genetically encoded Eag domain fragment (amino acids 1-135) was shown to restore slow deactivation to N-truncated channels. Our present study sought to further investigate Eag domain contributions to hERG gating kinetics. We coexpressed the genetically encoded Eag domain fragment (N1-135) with hERG channels bearing a deletion of the N-terminus in Xenopus oocytes and measured current with two-electrode voltage-clamp recordings. Here we report that coexpression with the N1-135 peptide led to a reduction in relative outward current and slowed recovery from inactivation resulting in channels with properties similar to those measured in wild-type hERG. Through regulation of deactivation and inactivation gating, the Eag domain determines the physiologically critical resurgent component of hERG current via a non-covalent interaction with the channel.

Off-the-shelf CAR T cells may offer advantages over autologous strategies, including ease of manufacturing, improved quality control with avoidance of malignant contamination and T cell dysfunction as well as the ability to generate a final product from healthy T cells. While TCR editing can effectively prevent graft-versus-host reactions, the significant host-versus-graft immune response against histoincompatible T cells prevents the expansion and persistence of allogeneic CAR T cells and mitigates the efficacy of this approach. The goal is to achieve improved rates of durable complete remissions by improving allogeneic CD19CAR persistence since it has been shown that autologous CAR T cells have greater durability over years than allogeneic CAR T cells (N Engl J Med. 2021;384(7):673-674). We describe here the engineering of human immune evasive CAR T cells based on our previously described hypoimmune technology (Nat Biotechnol 2019;37(3):252-258 and Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021;118(28):e2022091118). A major challenge is that, while HLA deletion can result in adaptive immune evasion, innate reactivity is enhanced by this strategy. Since CD47 overexpression can block both NK cell and macrophage killing (J Exp Med 2021;218(3):e20200839), we hypothesized that T cells would lose their immunogenicity when human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and II genes are inactivated and CD47 is over-expressed. Human T cells from healthy donors were obtained by leukapheresis. To generate hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells, gene editing was used to delete b2m, CIITA, and TCR expression and lentiviral transduction was used to overexpress CD47 and CD19CAR containing a 4-1BB costimulatory domain to generate hypoimmune CAR T cells. Control T cells were unmanipulated except for lentiviral transduction used to overexpress the same CD19CAR and the deletion of the TCR. When transplanted into allogeneic humanized mice, hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells evade immune recognition by T cells even in previously sensitized animals as evidenced by a lack of T cell activation measured using ELISPOT analysis. In contrast, transplantation of non-hypoimmune-edited CD19CAR T cells generated from the same human donor resulted in a significant T cell activation (see figure: mean 59 and 558 spot frequencies for hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells and non-edited CD19CAR T cells, respectively; p<0.0001 unpaired T-test). In addition to evading T cells, immune cell assays show that CD47 overexpression protects hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells from NK cell and macrophage killing in vitro and in vivo. Relative CD47 expression levels were analyzed to understand the relevance of CD47 for protection from macrophage and NK cell killing. A blocking antibody against CD47 made the hypoimmune CAR T cells susceptible to macrophage and NK cell killing in vitro and in vivo, confirming the importance of CD47 overexpression to evade innate immune clearance. The hypoimmune CD19 CAR T cells retained their antitumor activity in both the Daudi and Nalm-6 B cell leukemia models, in vitro and in vivo. This indicated that the hypoimmune technology-i.e. isolated CD47 overexpression, deletion of b2m, CIITA, and TCR- did not show any effect on the cytotoxic potential of CD19 CAR T cells (see figure). These studies demonstrate that in vivo clearance of leukemic cells in NSG mice occurs across a range of tumor cell toCD19 CAR T cell ratios in a manner comparable to control, unedited CD19 CAR T cells (see figure). This result was validated using T cells from 3 different donors These findings show that, in these models, hypoimmune CD19 CAR T cells are functionally immune evasive in allogeneic humanized mouse recipients and have cytotoxic anti-tumor capacity. They suggest that hypoimmune CAR T cells could provide universal CAR T cells that are able to persist without immunosuppression. Furthermore, these data suggest that hypoimmune CD19 CAR T cells can be used in sensitized patients and for re-dosing strategies. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Hu: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Dao: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. White: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Gattis: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Clarke: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Landry: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Basco: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Tham: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Tucker: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Luo: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Bandoro: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Chu: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Young: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Foster: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Dowdle: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Rebar: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Fry: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Schrepfer: Sana Biotechnology: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company.

Off-the-shelf CAR T cells may offer advantages over autologous strategies, including ease of manufacturing, improved quality control with avoidance of malignant contamination and T cell dysfunction, and the ability to generate a final product from healthy T cells. However, host-versus-graft immune response against histoincompatible T cells prevents the expansion and persistence of allogeneic CAR T cells and mitigates the efficacy of this approach. A major challenge is that, while HLA deletion can result in adaptive immune evasion, innate reactivity is enhanced. While T cells express CD47, we demonstrate here that CD47 expression above endogenous levels is important for immune evasion. We describe here the engineering of human immune evasive CAR T cells building on our previously described hypoimmune technology (Nat Biotechnol 2019;37(3):252-258 and Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021;118(28):e2022091118). The goal is to achieve improved rates of durable complete remissions by improving allogeneic CD19CAR persistence, since it has been shown that autologous CAR T cells have greater durability over years than allogeneic CAR T cells. Human T cells from healthy donors were obtained by leukapheresis. To generate hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells, gene editing was used to eliminate HLA-I/II and TCR expression and lentiviral transduction was used to express CD47 and CD19CAR containing a 4-1BB costimulatory domain to generate hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells. Control CD19CAR T cells were unmanipulated, i.e., unedited, except for lentiviral transduction used to express CD19CAR. Hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells persist in allogeneic humanized mice and lack T cell activation measured using bioluminescence imaging and ELISPOT analysis, respectively. In contrast, transplantation of control CD19CAR T cells generated from the same human donor resulted in rejection (ELISPOT mean 59 and 558 spot frequencies for hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells and control CD19CAR T cells, respectively; p<0.0001 unpaired t-test). Innate immune cell assays show that CD47 overexpression protects hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells from NK cell and macrophage killing. A blocking antibody against CD47 made the hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells susceptible to macrophage and NK cell killing, confirming the importance of CD47 overexpression to evade innate immune clearance. Importantly, CD47 seemed to provide protection from all NK cell populations while other tested NK cell inhibitory molecules (such as HLA-E/G, PD-L1) seemed to prevent NK cell killing of only certain subpopulations rather than primary NK cells in total. Hypoimmune CD19CAR T cells retain their antitumor activity in the Nalm-6 B cell leukemia model in vitro and in vivo comparable to control CD19CAR T cells derived from various donors. Thus, hypoimmune edits seem to not impact CD19CAR T cell activity and have the potential to provide universal CAR T cells that are able to persist without immunosuppression. Citation Format: Xiaomeng Hu, Kathy White, Corie Gattis, Ryan Clarke, Sam Landry, Ron Basco, Eleonore Tham, Emily Luo, Andrew Tucker, Christopher Bandoro, Elaine Chu, Chi Young, Karl Manner, Priscilla Nho, Ben Lam, Pascal Beauchesne, Aaron Foster, William E. Dowdle, Edward J. Rebar, Terry J. Fry, Sonja Schrepfer. Engineered hypoimmune allogeneic CAR T cells as potential off-the-shelf CAR T cell immunotherapies [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 5598.