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Engineered lymphocytes cells can fight COVID19 better: Study

Rajeev Choudhury

Researchers at City of Hope National Medical Center say that they have engineered immunotherapy using the natural killer (NK) cells molecule that can target the SARS-CoV-2 virus’ spike protein, providing a new therapeutic pathway for the treatment of COVID19 and other infections involving spike protein.

The natural killer cells are lymphocytes, which recognise and rapidly target abnormal cells, including virus-infected cells and though these cells are universal killers in the body’s immune response against certain viruses or tumours, they lack specificity against SARS-CoV-2, they added.

In the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communication recently, the researchers found that genetically modifying the NK cells with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that specifically recognises the SARS-CoV-2 virus improves survival in animals infected with the virus.

During the course of the study, the researchers injected the engineered NK cells to mice transplanted with functional human genes (humanised mice) infected with live SARS-CoV-2.

The results showed a reduced viral load and prolonged survival in the animal models, the researchers said.

The team further noted in their paper that cryopreserved cells too retained their activity.

“The importance of this off-the-shelf therapy is that one does not need to use one’s own cells — the cells can be frozen and ready to go, locally or shipped anywhere around the world,” Dr Michael Caligiuri president of City of Hope National Medical Center, and one of the study’s authors said.

Noting that though cellular immunotherapies for COVID-19 patients have not been approved yet, they could be beneficial because they harness existing immunity to fight the disease, Professor Jianhua Yu, director of the Natural Killer Cell Biology Research Program said,  “Sadly, more than one million Americans have died from COVID-19; therefore, more effective therapies are still needed.”

The researchers reported that they isolated NK cells from umbilical cord blood, which were then engineered to express ACE2 receptors, which are recognised by the virus to enter the body cells, to attach to the virus spike proteins to attack the virus.

They further engineered the CAR NK cells to release IL-15, an immune hormone that can prolong the survival of the NK cells in the body.

Noting that CAR NK cells may offer several advantages over CAR T cells for COVID-19 patients, the researchers wrote in the paper that though both CAR NK cell and CAR T cell therapies use engineered immune cells to recognise and kill cells expressing a specific antigen, there are important differences.

“Allogeneic T cells can induce graft-versus-host disease, whereas allogeneic NK cells do not, the latter of which opens a door for the broader therapeutic application of NK cell,” they further noted.

“However, we also do not know if allogenei


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