Enhanced Anti-Myeloma Efficacy of BCMA-CAR and Armored BCMA-IL15-CAR NK Cells against Multiple Myeloma — ASN Events

Enhanced Anti-Myeloma Efficacy of BCMA-CAR and Armored BCMA-IL15-CAR NK Cells against Multiple Myeloma (#149)

Geum-Seop Kim 1 2 , Yurim An 3 , Jae-Hee Park 1 , Je-jung Lee 4 , Duck Cho 5 , Sang-ki Kim 1 2 3
  1. Department of Companion and Laboratory Animal Science, College of Industrial Science, Kongju National University, Yesan-gun, Chungnam, Republic of Korea
  2. Research Institute for Natural Products, Kongju National University, Yesan-gun, Chungnam, Republic of Korea
  3. Department of Applied Biotechnology, Kongju National University, Yesan-gun, Chungnam, Republic of Korea
  4. Department of Hemotology-Oncology, Chonnam National Univresity Hwasun Hospital, Hwasun, Jeollanamdo, Republic of Korea
  5. Department of Laboratory Medicine and Genetics, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Natural killer (NK) cells are critical effectors of the innate immune system, capable of recognizing and eliminating pathogen-infected or malignant cells. Engineered CAR NK cells offer a promising alternative to CAR T-cell therapies, with the potential to enhance anti-tumor efficacy while minimizing the risks of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity. This study designed two CAR NK cell constructs targeting BCMA: a conventional BCMA-CAR (anti-BCMA-CD28-41BB-CD3ζ) and an advanced IL-15-secreting version, armored BCMA-IL-15-CAR, to enhance therapeutic efficacy. NK cells were expanded ex vivo using ARH77 feeder cells engineered to express membrane-bound B7H6, CD137L, IL-15, and IL-15Rα. After seven days of expansion, BCMA-CAR lentiviruses were transduced into NK cells via BaEv-TR pseudotyped lentiviral vectors. Following transduction, NK cell purity was over 90% on day 7, with transduction efficiencies of 33.5% for BCMA-CAR, and 27.7% for armored BCMA-IL15-CAR, which remained stable over 7 days. Cytotoxicity assays using K562 cells, which do not express BCMA, revealed no notable differences between groups. However, both BCMA-CAR constructs markedly increased NK cell cytotoxicity and CD107a degranulation against multiple myeloma (MM) cell lines (RPMI-8226, U266/B4, NCI-H929) compared to unmodified NK cells. Remarkably, armored BCMA-IL-15-CAR NK cells displayed significantly increased cytotoxicity against MM cells compared to BCMA-CAR NK cells alone. long-term cytotoxicity assays revealed that while both BCMA-CAR NK and BCMA-IL15-CAR NK cells effectively targeted tumor cells, BCMA-IL15-CAR NK cells demonstrated significantly prolonged cytotoxic activity. This sustained effect is likely attributed to IL-15 secretion, which enhances NK cell persistence and function. These results underscore the strong anti-myeloma activity of BCMA-CAR-NK and armored BCMA-IL-15-CAR NK cells, highlighting their potential as promising therapeutic strategies for multiple myeloma.