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Updated: Jun 16, 2025

Non-Viral Engineering of Primary Human T Cells via Homology-Mediated End-Joining Targeted Integration of Large DNA Templates
Published on: May 9, 2025
Multi-engineered T cell vaccine boosting TCR-T cell therapy enhances anti-tumor function and eradicates heterogeneous
Xuan Che1, Shen Zheng1, Yuan Sun1
1Department of Cell Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University Health Science Center, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
Abstract:
T cell receptor (TCR)-engineered T cell therapy holds great promise for treating solid tumors, but the overall clinical efficacy remains limited. The vital challenge lies in the loss of TCR-targeted antigens and poor T cell persistence. Here, we demonstrate a novel approach to enhance TCR-T cell therapy and reject antigen-heterogeneous tumors through a multi-engineered T cell vaccine (Multi-Tvac). Multi-Tvac is composed of a TCR-targeted cognate peptide, tumor neoantigens, and an LAG-3Ig adjuvant signal, which significantly boosts dendritic cell (DC) maturation, enhances TCR-T cell anti-tumor function, and alleviates exhaustion phenotype. When combined with TCR-T cell therapy, Multi-Tvac induced long-lasting responses in established solid tumors resistant to TCR-T cell monotherapy. Notably, Multi-Tvac prevented antigen-loss tumor escape and achieved complete responses in an antigen-heterogeneous solid tumor model. Mechanistically, Multi-Tvac enhanced antigen presentation in secondary lymphoid organs (SLOs), orchestrating a strong endogenous immune response that primes T cells. As a proof-of-concept, our study extended T cell engineering beyond TCR-directed killing, which could perform as a therapeutic vaccination platform to empower TCR-T cells with new capabilities and overcome major barriers in the clinical treatment of solid tumors.
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