A Novel Allogeneic Rituximab-Conjugated Gamma Delta T Cell Therapy for the Treatment of Relapsed/Refractory B-Cell Lymphoma

Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy has been applied in the treatment of B-cell lymphoma; however, CAR-T manufacturing requires virus- or non-virus-based genetic modification, which causes high manufacturing costs and potential safety concerns. Antibody-cell conjugation (ACC) technology, which originated from bio-orthogonal click chemistry, provides an efficient approach for arming immune cells with cancer-targeting antibodies without genetic modification. Here, we applied ACC technology in Vγ9Vδ2 T (γδ2 T) cells to generate a novel off-the-shelf CD20-targeting cell therapy ACE1831 (rituximab-conjugated γδ2 T cells) against relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphoma. ACE1831 exhibited superior cytotoxicity against B-cell lymphoma cells and rituximab-resistant cells compared to γδ2 T cells without rituximab conjugation. The in vivo xenograft study demonstrated that ACE1831 treatment strongly suppressed the aggressive proliferation of B-cell lymphoma and prolonged the survival of tumor-bearing mice with no observed toxicity. Mass spectrometry analysis indicated that cell activation receptors including the TCR complex, integrins and cytokine receptors were conjugated with rituximab. Intriguingly, the antigen recognition of the ACC-linked antibody/receptor complex stimulated NFAT activation and contributed to ACE1831-mediated cytotoxicity against CD20-expressing cancer cells. This study elucidates the role of the ACC-linked antibody/receptor complex in cytotoxicity and supports the potential of ACE1831 as an off-the-shelf γδ2 cell therapy against relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphoma.

A novel endogenous CD16-Expressing Natural Killer Cell for cancer immunotherapy

Natural killer (NK) cells, as a potential source for off-the-shelf cell therapy, attack tumor cells with low risk of severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS) or graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). Fcγ receptor IIIA, also known as CD16, further confers NK cells with antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), one mechanism of action of antibody-based immunotherapy. Here, we establish a novel human NK cell line, oNK-1, endogenously expressing CD16 along with high levels of NK activation markers and low levels of NK inhibitory markers. The long-term expansion and CD16 expression of oNK-1 cells were demonstrated. Furthermore, oNK-1 cells elicit superior cytotoxicity against cancer cells than primary NK cells. In conclusion, this study suggests that endogenous CD16-expressing oNK-1 has the potential to develop an effective NK-based therapy.

New techniques on deformed image motion estimation and compensation

In this paper, new techniques for deformed image motion estimation and compensation using variable-size block-matching are proposed, which can be applied to an image sequence compression system or a moving object recognition system. The motion estimation and compensation techniques have been successfully applied in the area of image sequence coding. Many research papers on improving the performance of these techniques have been published; many directions are proposed, which can all lead to better performance than the conventional techniques. Among them, both generalized block-matching and variable-size block-matching are successfully applied in reducing the data rate of compensation error and motion information, respectively. These two algorithms have their merits, but suffer from their drawbacks. Moreover, reducing the data rate in compensation error is sometimes increasing the data rate in motion information, or vice versa. Based on these two algorithms, we propose and examine several algorithms which are effective in reducing the data rate. We then incorporate these algorithms into a system, in which they work together to overcome the disadvantages to individual and keep their merits at the same time. The proposed system can optimally balance the amount of data rate in two aspects (i.e., compensation error and motion information). Experimental results show that the proposed system outweighs the conventional techniques. Since we propose a recovery operation which tries to recover the incorrect motion vectors from the global motion, this proposed system can also be applied to the moving object recognition in image sequences.

Renal endosomal phosphate (Pi) transport in normal and diabetic rats and response to chronic Pi deprivation

Chronic renal adaptation to dietary deprivation of Pi is accompanied by increased Na+/Pi co-transport across the brush border membrane of the renal proximal tubule. The increased activity of this co-transport system depends on de novo protein synthesis and insulin. The present study used normal and diabetic rats to determine if the endosomal pool of Na+/Pi co-transporters was altered by Pi deprivation and the possible role of insulin. In response to 5 days of dietary Pi deprivation there was a significant increase in endosomal Na+/Pi co-transport in control rats but there was no change in diabetic rats. The increase in endosomal Pi uptake was restored in diabetic rats treated with exogenous insulin. Na(+)-independent Pi uptake and proline uptake remained unchanged in all groups. The changes in endosomal Na+/Pi co-transport correlated with the abundance of the specific Na+/Pi co-transporter protein, as determined by Western blots. The pattern of endosomal changes paralleled that observed in brush border membranes. One possibility consistent with these findings is that the endosomal fraction contains newly synthesized Na+/Pi co-transporters targeted for delivery to the apical brush border membrane. Increased synthesis and delivery is required to maintain the adaptation to chronic Pi deprivation.

Characterization and nucleotide sequences of the variable regions of a monoclonal antibody against alpha-fetoprotein

alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) is a well-known tumor marker of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Monoclonal antibodies against AFP possessing specific binding ability to HCC are potential candidates for immunoscintigraphy and immunotherapy. A new monoclonal antibody against AFP (0325-6-9) was isolated. Its specificity and targeting tumor ability were characterized by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), cell immunostain and complement killing. These results suggest that 0325-6-9 is specific to hepatoma cells. The nucleotide sequences of variable regions of 0325-6-9 were determined by M13 dideoxynucleotide sequencing method. With the information of nucleotide sequence, this antibody then could be modified by recombinant technology for its usage in in vivo diagnosis and immunotherapy.