Who wins the combat, CAR or TCR?

• Published in: Leukemia Vol. 37; no. 10; pp. 1953 - 1962
• Main Authors: Yun, Kun, Siegler, Elizabeth L., Kenderian, Saad S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-10-2023; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/250/251; 631/67/580; Antigens; Cancer Research; Cell activation; Cell growth; Cell therapy; Chimeric antigen receptors; Critical Care Medicine; Cytokines; Cytotoxicity; FDA approval; Hematology; Humans; Immunotherapy, Adoptive; Intensive; Internal Medicine; Kinases; Localization; Lymphocytes; Lymphocytes T; Malignancy; Medical research; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local - metabolism; Oncology; Peptides; Receptors; Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell; Receptors, Chimeric Antigen - metabolism; Review Article; Signal transduction; T cell receptors; T-Lymphocytes; Therapy
• ISSN: 0887-6924; 1476-5551
• DOI: 10.1038/s41375-023-01976-z

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy has drawn increasing attention over the last few decades given its remarkable effectiveness and breakthroughs in treating B cell hematological malignancies. Even though CAR-T cell therapy has outstanding clinical successes, most treated patients still relapse after infusion. CARs are derived from the T cell receptor (TCR) complex and co-stimulatory molecules associated with T cell activation; however, the similarities and differences between CARs and endogenous TCRs regarding their sensitivity, signaling pathway, killing mechanisms, and performance are still not fully understood. In this review, we discuss the parallel comparisons between CARs and TCRs from various aspects and how these current findings might provide novel insights and contribute to improvement of CAR-T cell therapy efficacy.