Selective B cell depletion upon infusion of replication-incompetent anti-CD19 CAR lentivirus

Abstract

Anti-CD19 CAR-T therapy for B cell malignancies has shown clinical success, but a major limitation is the logistical complexity and high cost of manufacturing autologous cell products. If engineered for improved safety, direct infusion of viral gene transfer vectors to initiate in vivo CAR-T transduction, expansion and anti-tumor activity could provide an alternative, universal approach. To explore this approach we administered approximately 20 million replication-incompetent VSV-G lentiviral particles carrying an anti-CD19CAR-2A-GFP transgene comprising either an FMC63 (human) or 1D3 (murine) anti-CD19 binding domain, or a GFP-only control transgene, to wild-type C57BL/6 mice by tail vein infusion. The dynamics of immune cell subsets isolated from peripheral blood were monitored at weekly intervals. We saw emergence of a persistent CAR-transduced CD3+ T cell population beginning week 3-4 that reached a maximum of 13.5 +/-0.58% (mean +/-SD) and 7.8 +/-0.76% of the peripheral blood CD3+ T cell population in mice infused with ID3-CAR or FMC63-CAR lentivector, respectively, followed by a rapid decline in each case of the B cell content of peripheral blood. Complete B cell aplasia was apparent by week 5 and was sustained until the end of the protocol (week 8). No significant CAR positive populations were observed within other immune cell subsets or other tissues. These results indicate that direct IV infusion of conventional VSV-G pseudotyped lentiviral particles carrying a CD19 CAR transgene can transduce T cells that then fully ablate endogenous B cells in wild type mice.