Epigenetics Meets CAR-T-Cell Therapy to Fight Cancer

Abstract

Based on the impressive success of Car-T-cell therapy in the treatment of hematological malignancies, a broad application for solid tumors also appears promising. However, some important hurdles need to be overcome. One of these is certainly the identification of specific target antigens on cancer cells. Hypomethylation is a characteristic epigenetic aberration in many tumor entities. Genome-wide screenings for consistent DNA hypomethylations in tumors enable the identification of aberrantly upregulated transcripts, which might result in cell surface proteins. Thus, this approach provides a new perspective for the discovery of potential new Car-T-cell target antigens for almost every tumor entity. First, we focus on this approach as a possible treatment for prostate cancer.