Omics analyses provide insights to CART cell therapy resistance

Abstract

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CART) cell therapy has revolutionized the treatment of relapsed/refractory B cell malignancies in recent years. Despite high initial response rates, durable response rates are low, and CART cell efficacy in solid tumors is very modest. Additionally, the overall success of CART cell therapy is limited by toxicities such as cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity. Decades of advancement in genome sequencing technology and bioinformatics have given us a better understanding of how cancer develops and evolves following treatments. This has resulted in a better understanding of patient response to cancer treatment on a molecular level. Resistance to CART cell therapy can be mediated by the cancer cells, the tumor microenvironment, or the patient’s T cells. In this review, we will outline lessons learned from multi-omics studies (1) to identify biomarkers of response or toxicity to CART cell therapy or (2) to develop biomarker-guided therapeutic interventions to overcome these limitations.