Engineering strategies for generating hypoimmunogenic cells with high clinical and commercial value

Remyelination in the Central Nervous System

The inability of the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) to undergo spontaneous regeneration has long been regarded as a central tenet of neurobiology. However, while this is largely true of the neuronal elements of the adult mammalian CNS, save for discrete populations of granule neurons, the same is not true of its glial elements. In particular, the loss of oligodendrocytes, which results in demyelination, triggers a spontaneous and often highly efficient regenerative response, remyelination, in which new oligodendrocytes are generated and myelin sheaths are restored to denuded axons. Yet remyelination in humans is not without limitation, and a variety of demyelinating conditions are associated with sustained and disabling myelin loss. In this work, we will (1) review the biology of remyelination, including the cells and signals involved; (2) describe when remyelination occurs and when and why it fails, including the consequences of its failure; and (3) discuss approaches for therapeutically enhancing remyelination in demyelinating diseases of both children and adults, both by stimulating endogenous oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and by transplanting these cells into demyelinated brain.

Enhanced survival of hypoimmunogenic otic progenitors following intracochlear xenotransplantation: repercussions for stem cell therapy in hearing loss models

Stem cell replacement holds the potential for sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) treatment. However, its translation into clinical practice requires strategies for improving stem cell survival following intracochlear transplantation. Considering recent findings showing that the inner ear contains a resident population of immune cells, we hypothesized that immune evasion would improve the survival and residence time of transplanted stem cells in the cochlea, potentially leading to better outcomes. To test this, we leveraged genetic engineering techniques to develop hypoimmunogenic human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hi-iPSC), which lack human leukocyte antigen expression. We found that gene editing does not affect the biological properties of hi-iPSCs, including their capacity to differentiate into otic neural progenitors (ONPs). Compared to wild-type ONPs, more hypoimmunogenic ONPs (derived from hi-iPSCs) were found in the inner ear of immunocompetent mice ten days following cochlear xenotransplantation. This approach may open a new avenue for experimental and clinical SNHL treatments.

Translating cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases: Huntington's disease as a model disorder

There has been substantial progress in the development of regenerative medicine strategies for CNS disorders over the last decade, with progression to early clinical studies for some conditions. However, there are multiple challenges along the translational pipeline, many of which are common across diseases and pertinent to multiple donor cell types. These include defining the point at which the preclinical data are sufficiently compelling to permit progression to the first clinical studies; scaling-up, characterization, quality control and validation of the cell product; design, validation and approval of the surgical device; and operative procedures for safe and effective delivery of cell product to the brain. Furthermore, clinical trials that incorporate principles of efficient design and disease-specific outcomes are urgently needed (particularly for those undertaken in rare diseases, where relatively small cohorts are an additional limiting factor), and all processes must be adaptable in a dynamic regulatory environment. Here we set out the challenges associated with the clinical translation of cell therapy, using Huntington's disease as a specific example, and suggest potential strategies to address these challenges. Huntington's disease presents a clear unmet need, but, importantly, it is an autosomal dominant condition with a readily available gene test, full genetic penetrance and a wide range of associated animal models, which together mean that it is a powerful condition in which to develop principles and test experimental therapeutics. We propose that solving these challenges in Huntington's disease would provide a road map for many other neurological conditions. This white paper represents a consensus opinion emerging from a series of meetings of the international translational platforms Stem Cells for Huntington's Disease and the European Huntington's Disease Network Advanced Therapies Working Group, established to identify the challenges of cell therapy, share experience, develop guidance and highlight future directions, with the aim to expedite progress towards therapies for clinical benefit in Huntington's disease.

Advances in Adoptive Cell Therapy Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived T Cells

Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells holds impressive clinical outcomes especially in patients who are refractory to other kinds of therapy. However, many challenges hinder its clinical applications. For example, patients who undergo chemotherapy usually have an insufficient number of autologous T cells due to lymphopenia. Long-term ex vivo expansion can result in T cell exhaustion, which reduces the effector function. There is also a batch-to-batch variation during the manufacturing process, making it difficult to standardize and validate the cell products. In addition, the process is labor-intensive and costly. Generation of universal off-the-shelf CAR T cells, which can be broadly given to any patient, prepared in advance and ready to use, would be ideal and more cost-effective. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provide a renewable source of cells that can be genetically engineered and differentiated into immune cells with enhanced anti-tumor cytotoxicity. This review describes basic knowledge of T cell biology, applications in ACT, the use of iPSCs as a new source of T cells and current differentiation strategies used to generate T cells as well as recent advances in genome engineering to produce next-generation off-the-shelf T cells with improved effector functions. We also discuss challenges in the field and future perspectives toward the final universal off-the-shelf immunotherapeutic products.

Glial progenitor cell-based repair of the dysmyelinated brain: Progression to the clinic

Demyelinating disorders of the central white matter are among the most prevalent and disabling conditions in neurology. Since myelin-producing oligodendrocytes comprise the principal cell type deficient or lost in these conditions, their replacement by new cells generated from transplanted bipotential oligodendrocyte-astrocyte progenitor cells has emerged as a therapeutic strategy for a variety of primary dysmyelinating diseases. In this review, we summarize the research and clinical considerations supporting current efforts to bring this treatment approach to patients.

Applications of CRISPR technologies in transplantation

In transplantation, the ever-increasing number of an organ's demand and long-term graft dysfunction constitute some of the major problems. Therefore, alternative solutions to increase the quantity and quality of the organ supply for transplantation are desired. On this subject, revolutionary Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology holds enormous potential for the scientific community with its expanding toolbox. In this minireview, we summarize the history and mechanism of CRISPR/Cas9 systems and explore its potential applications in cellular- and organ-level transplantation. The last part of this review includes future opportunities as well as the challenges in the transplantation field.

Regulatory B Cells: Dark Horse in Pregnancy Immunotherapy?

There are many unanswered questions surrounding the function of immune cells and how they interact with the reproductive system to support successful pregnancy or contribute to pregnancy pathologies. While the role of immune cells such as uterine natural killer and dendritic cells, and more recently regulatory T cells has been established, the role of another major immune cell population, the B cell, and particularly the regulatory B cells, is relatively poorly understood. This review outlines what is known about B-cell subsets in the context of pregnancy, what constitutes a regulatory B cell and what role they may play, particularly during early pregnancy. Lastly, we discuss why immunotherapies for the treatment of pregnancy disorders is not widely progressed clinically and speculate on the potential of functional regulatory B cells as the basis of novel immunotherapeutic approaches for the treatment of immune-based pregnancy pathologies.

Enabling allogeneic therapies: CIRM-funded strategies for immune tolerance and immune evasion

A major goal for the field of regenerative medicine is to enable the safe and durable engraftment of allogeneic tissues and organs. In contrast to autologous therapies, allogeneic therapies can be produced for many patients, thus reducing costs and increasing availability. However, the need to overcome strong immune system barriers to engraftment poses a significant biological challenge to widespread adoption of allogeneic therapies. While the use of powerful immunosuppressant drugs has enabled the engraftment of lifesaving organ transplants, these drugs have serious side effects and often the organ is eventually rejected by the recipient immune system. Two conceptually different strategies have emerged to enable durable engraftment of allogeneic therapies in the absence of immune suppression. One strategy is to induce immune tolerance of the transplant, either by creating “mixed chimerism” in the hematopoietic system, or by retraining the immune system using modified thymic epithelial cells. The second strategy is to evade the immune system altogether, either by engineering the donor tissue to be “invisible” to the immune system, or by sequestering the donor tissue in an immune impermeable barrier. We give examples of research funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in each of these areas, ranging from early discovery‐stage work through clinical trials. The advancements that are being made in this area hold promise that many more patients will be able to benefit from regenerative medicine therapies in the future.

Usefulness of the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Donor Pool as a Source of HLA-Homozygous Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells for Haplobanking: Combined Analysis of the Cord Blood Inventory and Bone Marrow Donor Registry

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have opened up unprecedented opportunities for novel therapeutic options for precision medicine. Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) donor pools with previously determined HLA types may be ideal sources for iPSC production. Based on the HLA distribution of cryopreserved cord blood units (CBUs) and registered bone marrow (BM) donors, we estimated how much of the Korean population could be covered by HLA-homozygous iPSCs. We analyzed a total of 143,866 Korean HSC donors (27,904 CBUs and 115,962 BM donors). Each donor sample was typed for the HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 alleles at low to intermediate resolution by DNA-based molecular techniques: PCR sequence-specific oligonucleotide (PCR-SSOP), PCR with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) and PCR with sequence-based typing (PCR-SBT). We also identified individuals possessing homozygous HLA haplotypes by direct counting. The matching probabilities for zero-mismatch transplantation were calculated for 143,866 Koreans and 50 million potential Korean patients. Among the HSC donor pool, 17 HLA-A alleles, 41 HLA-B alleles, and 13 HLA-DRB1 alleles, as well as 128 homozygous HLA-A-B-DRB1 haplotypes, were identified at serologic equivalents, and those haplotypes cumulatively matched 93.20% of the 143,866 Korean donors as zero HLA-mismatch iPSC sources. Among the combinations of 2,056 haplotypes with frequencies ≥ 0.001% in a population of 50 million, those 128 homozygous haplotypes can provide 93.65% coverage for potential Korean recipients. Haplobanking of a reasonable number of HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 homozygous iPSC lines derived from CBUs and cells of registered BM donors may be an efficient option for allogenic iPSC therapy.