Engineering strategies to optimise adoptive cell therapy in ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is amongst the ten most common cancer types in women, and it is one of the leading causes of death. Despite the promising results of targeted therapies, including anti-angiogenic agents and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi), the majority of patients will relapse and develop treatment resistance, implying that novel therapeutic strategies are required. Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) refers to the process by which autologous immune cells are used to eliminate cancer. Examples include tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), T cells genetically engineered with T cell receptors (TCR), or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells. Recently, ACT has revealed promising results in the treatment of haematological malignancies, however, its application to solid tumours is still limited due to lack of functionality and persistence of T cells, prevalence of an exhausted phenotype and impaired trafficking towards the tumour microenvironment (TME). In this review we explore the potential of ACT for the treatment of ovarian cancer and strategies to overcome its principal limitations.

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Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: CG – no declarations. MK, GK and RH are employees of Instil Bio with stock or stock options. RJE – received honoraria from GSK, & Clovis Inc.