Comparative Analysis of CAR T Cells with Dual Specificity for CD19 and CD20

CAR T-cell therapy of patients with B-cell malignancies demonstrates high efficacy and an acceptable safety profile. However, some patients do not respond to treatment or quickly relapse. One of the reasons for an inadequate response to CAR T-cell therapy may be the emergence of cancer cells escape variants that do not express the epitope recognized by the CAR. Using CAR T-cells with dual specificity could help mitigate this issue. In this study, we developed CAR T-cells specific to human CD19 and CD20 by exploring four configurations of antigen-recognition domains: two in the biCAR format and two in the dualCAR format. Expression of two independent CARs (dualCAR) driven by a single promoter was found to be the most promising format.