Advances in CAR T-cell therapy for Prostate Cancer

Advances in CAR T-cell therapy for Prostate Cancer

25 September 2023

A strategic collaboration between Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre's Immunology Program and Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute has discovered a novel way in which solid cancers, like prostate, may be made responsive to immunotherapy.

The preclinical research discovery was published in Nature Communications, and showed Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy that successfully treats some forms of blood cancer can be adapted to treat prostate cancer.

Professor Joe Trapani, Head of Peter Mac's Cancer Immunology Program explained that CAR T-cell therapy is a game-changer in treating blood cancers and there is a global research effort to expand its use to treat solid cancers.

"Our finding shows that using a modulating agent, like chemotherapy, can change the hostile environment surrounding solid tumours and allow the CAR T-cells to get access to the tumour and kill the cancer cells," Professor Trapani said.

Co-senior author Professor Renea Taylor from Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute explained that it's the hostile environment of solid cancers that prevents the CAR T-cells from successfully entering the tumour and killing the cancer cells.

"In blood cancers, CAR T-cell therapies can directly attack cancer cells that are circulating in the blood or being produced in the bone marrow. However, in solid cancers, such as prostate cancer, physical and chemical barriers prevent the CAR T-cells penetrating the tumour and killing it," she said.

Professor Trapani said this is proof of the concept that if you get the 'modifying' approaches right, CAR T-cells may not only have a broad utility for prostate cancer, but also other solid cancers.

"One of the remarkable things we found is that giving a small dose of chemotherapy used for some cases of advanced prostate cancer seemed to greatly boost the anti-cancer effects of CAR T-cells if they are given a few days later, in many cases leading to the tumour being eradicated," he said.

The collaborative team will continue to search for more modulating agents that cause such a powerful synergy with CAR T-cell immunotherapy and determine why combining the two therapies can be so beneficial.

Read the paper, published in Nature Communications, titled Low-dose carboplatin modifies the tumor microenvironment to augment CAR T cell efficacy in human prostate cancer models

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-40852-3

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