Insciences J. 2011, 1(4), 157-168;doi:10.5640/insc.0104157

Review Paper, Section: Stem Cells

Application of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells in T Cell Based Cancer Immunotherapy

Arvind Chhabra^{1 *}

¹ Department of Medicine, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut, USA.

^* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Published: September 28, 2011

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Abstract

Human pluripotent stem cells represent a unique reservoir that could be utilized for generating cells of a given lineage. Cancer immunotherapy field could benefit from this, since one of the key limitations in developing an effective immune based cancer therapy is the lack of sufficient high avidity anti-tumor T cells in a great majority of cancer patients. The main reason for this is the fact that most human tumor antigens are “self-antigens” and most self reactive high avidity T cells are deleted during development to avoid autoimmunity. This manuscript reviews recent advances towards differentiating human pluripotent stem (hPS) cells into different immune effector cells, and potential strategies to utilize hPS cells in T cell based cancer immunotherapy approaches. We will also discuss the advantages and concerns associated with their clinical applications.

Cancer, Human embryonic stem cells (hES), Human pluripotent stem cells (hPS), Immunotherapy, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), TCR engineering