CD19-specific CAR-T cell therapy for relapsed/refractory non-B-cell acute leukaemia with CD19 antigen expression

CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has achieved remarkable efficacy in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL) [ [1] Maude S.L. Frey N. Shaw P.A. et al. Chimeric antigen receptor T cells for sustained remissions in leukemia. N Engl J Med. 2014; 371: 1507-1517 Crossref PubMed Scopus (3118) Google Scholar , [2] Pan J. Yang J.F. Deng B.P. et al. High efficacy and safety of low-dose CD19-directed CAR-T cell therapy in 51 refractory or relapsed B acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. Leukemia. 2017; 31: 2587-2593 Crossref PubMed Scopus (115) Google Scholar ], and two anti-CD19 CAR-T cell products were approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical use in 2017. However, a suitable target antigen for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) or T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) has not been identified yet, although some preclinical studies and clinical trials have shown promising effects of CAR-T cell therapy against AML or T-ALL by targeting different antigens such as CD123, CD44v6, Lewis Y, FLT3 or CD7 [ [3] Hofmann S. Schubert M.L. Wang L. et al. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). J Clin Med. 2019; 8: 200 Crossref Scopus (47) Google Scholar , [4] Gomes-Silva D. Srinivasan M. Sharma S. et al. CD7-edited T cells expressing a CD7-specific CAR for the therapy of T-cell malignancies. Blood. 2017; 130: 285-296 Crossref PubMed Scopus (151) Google Scholar ].