Enhancing human NK cell antitumor function by knocking out SMAD4 to counteract TGFβ and activin A suppression
Anna Rea, Sara Santana-Hernández, Javier Rodríguez Villanueva, Marta Sanvicente-García, Mariona Cabo, Jesús Suárez-Olmos, Fabricio Gerel Quimis, Mengjuan Qin, Eduard Llorens, Sandra Blasco-Benito, Lamberto Torralba‐Raga, Lorena Pérez, Bishan Bhattarai, Elisenda Alari‐Pahissa, Anna‐Maria Georgoudaki, Francesc Balaguer, Manel Juan, Julián Pardo, Toni Celià-Terrassa, Ana Rovira, Nina Möker, Congcong Zhang, Marco Colonna, Jan Spanholtz, Karl‐Johan Malmberg, Clara Montagut, Joan Albanell, Marc Güell, Miguel López‐Botet, Aura Muntasell
Abstract
Transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) and activin A suppress natural killer (NK) cell function and proliferation, limiting the efficacy of adoptive NK cell therapies. Inspired by the partial resistance to TGFβ of NK cells with SMAD4 haploinsufficiency, we used CRISPR–Cas9 for knockout of SMAD4 in human NK cells. Here we show that SMAD4KO NK cells were resistant to TGFβ and activin A inhibition, retaining their cytotoxicity, cytokine secretion and interleukin-2/interleukin-15-driven proliferation. They showed enhanced tumor penetration and tumor growth control, both as monotherapy and in combination with tumor-targeted therapeutic antibodies. Notably, SMAD4KO NK cells outperformed control NK cells treated with a TGFβ inhibitor, underscoring the benefit of maintaining SMAD4-independent TGFβ signaling. SMAD4KO conferred TGFβ resistance across diverse NK cell platforms, including CD19-CAR NK cells, stem cell-derived NK cells and ADAPT-NK cells. These findings position SMAD4 knockout as a versatile and compelling strategy to enhance NK cell antitumor activity, providing a new avenue for improving NK cell-based cancer immunotherapies. The authors show that knocking out SMAD4, human NK cells resist TGFβ and activin A suppression and demonstrate that SMAD4 knockout enhances the antitumor function of several NK cell products in clinical development.