5C and Supplementary Fig. focuses on (14). This observation suggests that tumor cells can still escape TanCAR detection by eliminating CD19 manifestation. To efficiently prevent antigen escape, the bi-specific CAR must not only identify two antigens, but also process both signals in a true Boolean OR-gate fashioni.e., either antigen input should be adequate to trigger strong T-cell output. We thus refer to this particular type of bi-specific receptors as CP 316311 OR-gate CARs. Here, we statement on the development of CD19-OR-CD20 CARs, which trigger strong T cellCmediated cytokine production and cytotoxicity when either CD19 or CD20 is present on the prospective cell. We demonstrate the size and rigidity of CAR molecules can be calibrated to match the specific antigens targeted, and the optimal OR-gate CAR structure can be deduced from known structural requirements for single-input CARs. Finally, we show that the CD19-OR-CD20 CARs can control both wild-type and CD19? mutant B-cell lymphomas with equal efficiency experiment was repeated with T cells from different donors (T cells were never pooled). See Supplementary Materials and Methods for additional details. Cytotoxicity assay Target cells (K562 cells) seeded at 1104 cells/well in a 96-well plate were co-incubated with effector cells at varying effector-to-target (E:T) ratios in complete media without phenol red and with 5% HI-FBS for 4 h. Supernatants were harvested and analyzed using the CytoTox 96 Non-Radioactive Cytotoxicity Assay kit (Promega). Cytokine production quantification Target cells were seeded at 5 104 cells/well in a 96-well plate and co-incubated with effector cells at an E:T ratio of 2:1 for 24 h. Cytokine concentrations in the culture supernatant were measured with the BD Cytometric Bead Array Human Th1/Th2 Cytokine Kit II Rabbit Polyclonal to Ezrin (phospho-Tyr146) (BD Biosciences). xenograft studies in mice All experiments were approved by the UCLA Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Six- to eight-week-old female NSG mice were bred in-house by the UCLA Department of Radiation and Oncology. EGFP+, firefly luciferase (ffLuc)-expressing Raji cells (5 105) were administered to NSG mice via tail-vein injection. Seven days later, mice bearing engrafted tumors were treated with 10 106 mock-transduced or CAR+/EGFRt+ cells via tail-vein injection. Tumor progression was monitored by bioluminescence imaging using an IVIS Lumina III LT Imaging System (Perkin Elmer). Peripheral blood was obtained by retro-orbital bleeding 10 days and 20 days post tumor-cell injection, and samples were analyzed by flow cytometry. Statistical Analysis Statistical significance of results was CP 316311 analyzed using two-tailed, unpaired, homoscedastic Student test; *: < 0.05; **: < 0.01. Data in B-E are representative of two impartial experiments performed with CAR-T cells derived from two different donors. To evaluate the utility of OR-gate CARs in preventing antigen escape, a mutant CD19? lymphoma cell line was generated by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing of Raji lymphoma cells (Supplementary Fig. S3). As expected, the single-input CD19 CARCT cells showed no response to CD19? target cells (Fig. 3 B to D). In contrast, T cells expressing OR-gate CARs efficiently lysed both wild-type (WT; CD19+/CD20+) and CD19? target cells (Fig. 3D). The original OR-gate CAR with a (G4S)1 linker had lower toxicity against mutant (CD19?/CD20+) Raji compared to WT CP 316311 Raji, indicating sub-optimal CD20 targeting. Increasing the length and/or rigidity of the linker sequence improved the OR-gate CARs ability to recognize CD20, resulting in equally efficient elimination of both WT and CD19? Raji target cells (Fig. 3D). In addition to enhanced cytotoxicity, modified OR-gate CARs expressed more activation and degranulation markers, and they produced significantly more interferon (IFN)-, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-, and IL2 compared to the original CAR with a (G4S)1 linker (Fig. 3B and C). The OR-gate CAR with a (G4S)4 linker showed similar levels of effector output compared to the single-input.