Breast Cancer CAR-NK Cell Therapy

Chimeric antigen receptor natural killer (CAR-NK) cell therapy is an emerging and promising approach in the treatment of breast cancer. Leveraging the innate capabilities of natural killer (NK) cells, this innovative therapy combines the specificity of CAR technology with the powerful cytotoxic potential of NK cells. Alfa Cytology is at the forefront of developing CAR-NK cell therapies specifically designed for breast cancer treatment.

Introduction of CAR-NK Cell Therapy

Natural killer (NK) cell-based immunotherapy is gaining interest due to its innate anti-tumor immunity without the need for prior sensitization and/or antigen presentation. CAR is receptor proteins that give immune cells new abilities to target specific antigenic proteins. CAR-NK modifies the surface CAR through genetic engineering and link the effective antibody that recognizes the surface of the target cell with the signal molecule required to activate immune cells. CAR-NK cells are strong candidates for targeted therapy of breast cancer (BC) due to their unique cell recognition mechanism, high cytotoxicity, and robust safety profile.

Fig.1 NK cell immunotherapy strategies. (Hatami Z, et al., 2023)

Our Services

Alfa Cytology can provide you with BC CAR-NK cell immunotherapy development services. The functional CAR molecule expressed on NK cells consists of three parts: extracellular domain, transmembrane region, and intracellular signaling domain. Our main methods of producing CAR-NK cells are:

• Viral transduction
  Viral transduction mainly uses lentivirus and retrovirus. Lentivirus can efficiently transduce both periodic and non-cyclical cells and has been widely used in the field of gene therapy. Different types of retroviruses can be used to generate CAR-NK cells, and CAR can be stably expressed in NK cells for a long time. Stable gene transfection is the prerequisite for NK cells to stably express CAR, and both lentivirus and retrovirus are good gene therapy vectors.
• mRNA electroporation
  Electroporation of CAR-encoding mRNA is a rapid, effective but short-lived method. Since mRNA synthesis complies with regulations and electroporation can be performed in a clean room, it is feasible to generate compliant CAR-NK by mRNA electroporation.
• CRISPR/Cas9
  CRISPR/Cas9 is a powerful genetic modification technology that relies on introducing the Cas9 protein into NK cells together with guide RNA. It can be used to precisely delete, repair or introduce specific genes, promising to generate powerful anti-tumor NK cells.

The Advantages of CAR-NK Cell Immunotherapy

• High safety
• No targeting effect
• Can inhibit cancer cells by recognizing various ligands through multiple receptors
• Abundant and easy-to-obtain clinical samples

Alfa Cytology is driven by R&D and innovation, focusing on the development of BC CAR-NK cell therapy. Our team is composed of highly educated and high-quality professionals with good professional backgrounds and experience in BC research. We have a complete set of technologies for CAR-NK therapy development. If you are interested in learning more about our BC therapy development services, please feel free to contact us. Our professional and patient staff will contact you as soon as possible.