Killer fatigue: Transition to NK-cell-like phenotype is a signature of CAR-T cell exhaustion

YYY Exhaustion of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells hinders their therapeutic efficacy, especially in treating solid tumors. In this issue of Cell, Good et al. develop an in vitro model of antigen-driven CAR-T cell exhaustion to characterize signatures of dysfunction, including a transition to a natural killer (NK)-like phenotype, and suggest new gene targets to prevent exhaustion.

Automated summary

Researchers developed an in vitro model to study exhaustion of CAR-T cells and identified signatures of dysfunction, including transition to a NK-like phenotype. New gene targets were suggested to prevent exhaustion.