Emerging research suggests that chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy could be an effective treatment for a range of difficult-to-treat autoimmune diseases, and sophisticated approaches are in tests, yet initial reports also highlight several questions that remain to be answered.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Müller, F. et al. CD19-targeted CAR T cells in refractory antisynthetase syndrome. Lancet 401, 815–818 (2023).
Mackensen, A. et al. Anti-CD19 CAR T cell therapy for refractory systemic lupus erythematosus. Nat. Med. 28, 2124–2132 (2022).
Kansal, R. et al. Sustained B cell depletion by CD19-targeted CAR T cells is a highly effective treatment for murine lupus. Sci. Transl. Med. 11, eaav1648 (2019).
Schmelz, J. L. et al. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy’s role in antiphospholipid syndrome: a case report. Br. J. Haematol. 188, e5–e8 (2020).
Zhang, W. et al. Treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus using BCMA-CD19 compound CAR. Stem Cell Rev. Rep. 17, 2120–2123 (2021).
Lee, J. et al. Antigen-specific B cell depletion for precision therapy of mucosal pemphigus vulgaris. J. Clin. Invest. 130, 6317–6324 (2020).
Oh, S. et al. Precision targeting of autoantigen-specific B cells in muscle-specific tyrosine kinase myasthenia gravis with chimeric autoantibody receptor T cells. Nat. Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01637-z (2023).
Mog, B. J. et al. Chimeric autoantigen-T cell receptor (CATCR)-T cell therapies to selectively target autoreactive B cells [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 74 (suppl. 9), 1677 (2022).
Whittington, K. B. et al. CD8+ T cells expressing an HLA-DR1 chimeric antigen receptor target autoimmune CD4+ T cells in an antigen-specific manner and inhibit the development of autoimmune arthritis. J. Immunol. 208, 16–26 (2022).
Yi, J. et al. Antigen-specific depletion of CD4+ T cells by CAR T cells reveals distinct roles of higher- and lower-affinity TCRs during autoimmunity. Sci. Immunol. 7, eabo0777 (2022).
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge L. Rider for helpful discussion and the Lupus Research Alliance and the Children’s Foundation of Memphis for support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Finkel, T.H., Radic, M. Chimeric receptors broaden the therapeutic landscape for autoimmune disease. Nat Rev Rheumatol 19, 327–328 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-023-00968-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-023-00968-8
