Gastric cancer is one of the most deadly cancer with high mortality. Annually, about 1 million people are diagnosed with this horrible disease, and the 5 year survival rate of gastric cancer patients remains poor. Thus, novel therapy for gastric cancer is urgently needed.
Immunotherapy, boosting patients’ immune response against tumor cells, has been demonstrated as an effective and feasible approach for cancer treatment. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) engineered T cell therapy, one of the most promising immunotherapy for curing cancer, has attracted more and more attentions in recent years.
Claudin18.2, a stomach-specific membrane protein, has been realized to be a potential therapeutic target for gastric cancer treatment utilizing CAR-T therapy. Recently, Hua Jiang and colleagues developed a 2nd generation CAR construct which specifically recognize Claudin18.2 via a humanized anti-Claudin18.2 antibody hu8E5. The CAR transduced T cells potently suppressed tumor growth both in gastric cancer cell line derived xenograft mouse model and gastric cancer patient derived xenograft mouse model.
Although a lot of work needs to be done for clinical translation, Claudin18.2 specific CAR-T therapy could be a promising clinical option for gastric cancer treatment in the future.
