Chemically Controlled,Immunosuppression-Resistant,Anti-Bcma Car-T Cells For Treatment Of Antibody-Mediated Autoimmunity

Auto-reactive antibody production by plasma cells is the direct cause of many auto-immune diseases. In such cases elimination of plasma cells would ameliorate the disease. Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cells with cytotoxicity toward cells expressing B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) have shown remarkable promise for the treatment of multiple myeloma, a plasma cell neoplasm. Elimination of non-malignant plasma cells is a side-effect of anti-BCMA CAR-T treatment of multiple myeloma, suggesting the use of these anti-BCMA CAR T cells for auto-immune indications. Unfortunately, CAR-T administration requires use of lymphodepletion to achieve efficient cell engraftment, and is often accompanied by cytokine release syndrome (CRS), a potentially life-threatening side-effect.