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CELL THERAPY

Cell fishing with DNA aptamers

Nature Biomedical Engineering volume 3, pages 757–758 (2019)Cite this article

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In the manufacturing of cell-based therapeutics, isolating cells via DNA aptamers is an attractive alternative to magnetic-activated cell sorting.

Cell-based therapy has ushered in a new class of cancer treatments that use living cells rather than small-molecule drugs or protein biologics. In particular, adoptive T-cell therapy, or the infusion of ex-vivo-expanded T cells into a patient, became the first genetically modified cell-based therapy to receive approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for cancer treatment in 2017 (ref. 1). Accompanying the rise of cell-based therapy is the need for efficient, robust and economically viable cell-manufacturing processes, the first step of which involves the isolation of appropriate starting cell populations for genetic modification and expansion. In the context of adoptive T-cell therapy for cancer, cell products derived from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs)2,3, bulk CD3+-sorted T cells4, central-memory T cells5,6, and CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in defined ratios7, have all been tested clinically. With the exception of PBMCs, each of these starting populations is obtained through a cell-sorting process.

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Fig. 1: Conventional MACS and aptamer-mediated cell sorting.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California–Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Yvonne Y. Chen

  2. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California–Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Yvonne Y. Chen

  3. Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy Center at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Yvonne Y. Chen

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  1. Yvonne Y. Chen
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Correspondence to Yvonne Y. Chen.

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Chen, Y.Y. Cell fishing with DNA aptamers. Nat Biomed Eng 3, 757–758 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-019-0438-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-019-0438-8

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