Biological causes of immunogenic cancer cell death (ICD) and anti-tumor therapy; Combination of Oncolytic virus-based immunotherapy and CAR T-cell therapy for ICD induction
Amirhossein Mardi, Anastasia V. Shirokova, Rebar N. Mohammed, Ali Keshavarz, Angelina Olegovna Zekiy, Lakshmi Thangavelu, Talar Ahmad Merza Mohammad, Faroogh Marofi, Navid Shomali, Amir Zamani, Morteza Akbari
Abstract
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a promising and rapidly expanding therapeutic option for a wide range of human malignancies. Despite the ongoing progress of CAR T-cell therapy in hematologic malignancies, the application of this therapeutic strategy in solid tumors has encountered several challenges due to antigen heterogeneity, suboptimal CAR T-cell trafficking, and the immunosuppressive features of the tumor microenvironment (TME). Oncolytic virotherapy is a novel cancer therapy that employs competent or genetically modified oncolytic viruses (OVs) to preferentially proliferate in tumor cells. OVs in combination with CAR T-cells are promising candidates for overcoming the current drawbacks of CAR T-cell application in tumors through triggering immunogenic cell death (ICD) in cancer cells. ICD is a type of cellular death in which danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and tumor-specific antigens are released, leading to the stimulation of potent anti-cancer immunity. In the present review, we discuss the biological causes of ICD, different types of ICD, and the synergistic combination of OVs and CAR T-cells to reach potent tumor-specific immunity.