The use of synthetic chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) to redirect T cells to recognize tumor provides a powerful new approach to cancer immunotherapy; however the attributes of CARs that ensure optimal in vivo tumor recognition remain to be defined. Here, we analyze the influence of length and composition of IgG-derived extracellular spacer domains on the function of CARs. Our studies demonstrate that CD19-CARs with a long spacer from IgG4 hinge-CH2-CH3 are functional in vitro but lack antitumor activity in vivo due to interaction between the Fc domain within the spacer and the Fc receptor-bearing myeloid cells, leading to activation-induced T-cell death. We demonstrate that in vivo persistence and antitumor effects of CAR-T-cells with a long spacer can be restored by modifying distinct regions in the CH2 domain that are essential for Fc receptor binding. Our studies demonstrate that modifications that abrogate binding to Fc receptors are crucial for CARs in which a long spacer is obligatory for tumor recognition as shown here for a ROR1-specific CAR. These results demonstrate that the length and composition of the extracellular spacer domain that lacks intrinsic signaling function can be decisive in the design of CARs for optimal in vivo activity.

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) link an antigen recognition domain to intracellular signaling domains to redirect T cell specificity and function. T cells expressing CARs with CD28/CD3ζ or 4-1BB/CD3ζ signaling domains are effective at treating refractory B cell malignancies but exhibit differences in effector function, clinical efficacy, and toxicity that are assumed to result from the activation of divergent signaling cascades. We analyzed stimulation-induced phosphorylation events in primary human CD8 CD28/CD3ζ and 4-1BB/CD3ζ CAR T cells by mass spectrometry and found that both CAR constructs activated similar signaling intermediates. Stimulation of CD28/CD3ζ CARs activated faster and larger-magnitude changes in protein phosphorylation, which correlated with an effector T cell-like phenotype and function. In contrast, 4-1BB/CD3ζ CAR T cells preferentially expressed T cell memory-associated genes and exhibited sustained antitumor activity against established tumors in vivo. Mutagenesis of the CAR CD28 signaling domain demonstrated that the increased CD28/CD3ζ CAR signal intensity was partly related to constitutive association of Lck with this domain in CAR complexes. Our data show that CAR signaling pathways cannot be predicted solely by the domains used to construct the receptor and that signal strength is a key determinant of T cell fate. Thus, tailoring CAR design based on signal strength may lead to improved clinical efficacy and reduced toxicity.

The COST 2100 channel model is a geometry-based stochastic channel model (GSCM) that can reproduce the stochastic properties of multi-link Multiple-Input Mulitple-Output (MIMO) channels over time, frequency and space. By contrast to other popular GSCMs, the COST 2100 approach is generic and flexible, making it suitable to model multiuser or distributed MIMO scenarios. In this paper a concise overview of the COST 2100 channel model is presented. Main concepts are described, together with useful implementation guidelines. Recent developments, including dense multipath components, polarization and multi-link aspects are also discussed.

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Despite notably high response rates to B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in multiple myeloma, few patients have a sustained, very good partial or complete response. This article presents a novel strategy to increase the efficacy of BCMA-directed CAR T-cell therapy and shows that γ-secretase inhibitors improve the efficacy of BCMA CAR T cells by increasing BCMA expression and reducing soluble BCMA.