Bioinspired Preservation of Natural Killer Cells for Cancer Immunotherapy

Overview

Journal Adv Sci (Weinh)

Specialty Biomedical Engineering

Date 2019 Apr 3

PMID 30937270

Citations 14

Authors

Rami El Assal

Lotfi Abou-Elkacem

Alessandro Tocchio

Shannon Pasley

Sandro Matosevic

David L Kaplan

Claudia Zylberberg

Utkan Demirci

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The ability to cryopreserve natural killer (NK) cells has a significant potential in modern cancer immunotherapy. Current cryopreservation protocols cause deterioration in NK cell viability and functionality. This work reports the preservation of human cytokine-activated NK cell viability and function following cryopreservation using a cocktail of biocompatible bioinspired cryoprotectants (i.e., dextran and carboxylated ε-poly-L-lysine). Results demonstrate that the recovered NK cells after cryopreservation and rewarming maintain their viability immediately after thawing at a comparable level to control (dimethyl sulfoxide-based cryopreservation). Although, their viability drops in the first day in culture compared to controls, the cells grow back to a comparable level to controls after 1 week in culture. In addition, the anti-tumor functional activity of recovered NK cells demonstrates higher cytotoxic potency against leukemia cells compared to control. This approach presents a new direction for NK cell preservation, focusing on function and potentially enabling storage and distribution for cancer immunotherapy.

Citing Articles

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