Using electroporation to determine function of a chimeric antigen receptor in T cell and macrophage cell lines

Abstract

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) have been used extensively in adoptive immunotherapy to modify T lymphocytes (CTLs), conferring the effector abilities of these cells towards a tumor-associated antigen (TAA). However, the ability of a CAR to redirect the effector function in a range of immune cells has not been well characterized, mainly due to the limitations in current genetic modification techniques. To overcome these limitations, we used the rapid technique of electroporation to transiently modify a macrophage, CD4+ T and CD8+ T cell line to express a CAR. This CAR consisted of an anti-ErbB2 extracellular single chain variable fragment region linked to the intracellular signaling domain..