MSLN (Mesothelin), ANTXR1 (TEM8), and MUC3A are the potent antigenic targets for CAR T cell therapy of gastric adenocarcinoma

Abstract Gastric adenocarcinoma is usually diagnosed in late stages, necessitating the use of different therapeutic modalities. Currently, antibody‐based therapies have also been approved through with limited clinical efficacy. Reinforcing antibody‐based immunotherapy by using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells may enhance the approach. However, the cells can cause severe on‐target and off‐tumor toxicities owing to their higher sensitivity to low‐level antigen expressions. To address the need for safe and reliable targets, we made a bioinformatics pipeline by which we screened overexpressed genes in the disease for off‐tumor sites in many normal tissues. Our inspection showed that MSLN (Mesothelin), ANTXR1 (TEM8), and MUC3A are the probable targets of CAR T cell therapy in gastric adenocarcinoma. The proposed antigenic targets might respond to the need to simultaneously target multiple antigens in a tumor matrix to prevent resistance.