Effect of Anti-CD3/CD28 Dynabeads and Allogeneic PBMCs on Expansion of Anti-MUC1 Chimeric Receptor T Cells

Background and purpose: In recent years, immunotherapy using chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR T cells) has been considered as a novel and promising treatment for some diseases, especially cancer. The CAR T cell production is a multi-step, complex, time-consuming, and costly process. One of the most important steps in production of CAR T cells is expansion of these cells at appropriate numbers for injection. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the methods of expansion for human CAR T cells in ex vivo. Materials and methods: In this study, specifically engineered CAR T cells against the MUC1 tumor antigen were prepared. The cells were then treated with rIL-2, anti-CD3/C28 Dynadeads, and allogeneic PBMC (Rapid expansion protocol (REP)) for 14 days. Results: The results showed that using anti-CD3/CD28 antibodies in effective ratios; 1: 1 and 1: 3 (bead: cell) along with (IU100) rIL-2 resulted in a 27.5-fold increase in the number of cells. However, the use of rIL-2 alone or allogeneic PBMC eventually resulted in 4.5-fold increase and 9-fold increase, respectively. Conclusion: Anti-CD3/CD28 in combination with rIL-2 can provide all three signals required for T cell activation and proliferation which can be a suitable alternative to costly and expensive cell proliferation techniques for animal or human CAR T cell studies.