Application of nanotechnology in CAR-T-cell immunotherapy

It is cellular immunotherapy for the tumor that the in vitro modified immunocytes from patients or donors are reinfused into patients to kill tumor cells. Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy, one of the most successful and representative tumor cellular immunotherapies, is now the weapon for cancer after extensive research. Although CAR-T immunotherapy achieves success in treating relapsed/refractory hematological tumors, its drawbacks, including the poor effect in solid tumors, cytokine release syndrome (CRS) or CAR-T-related encephalopathy syndrome (CRES), on-target, off-tumor effect, and high cost, cannot be overlooked. Nanotechnology is advantageous in the construction of CARs, the transfection of T cells, the expansion, delivery, and antitumor effect of CAR-T cells, and the reduction of CAR-T therapy-associated toxicities. Currently, introducing nanotechnology into CAR-T immunotherapy has already been performed in numerous studies with highly promising results. In this review, we summarized the nanotechnologies used in CAR-T immunotherapy and discussed the challenges and directions of CAR-T immunotherapy combined with nanotechnologies in the future.