Background aims: With the objective of improving the ex vivo production of therapeutic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, we explored the addition of three-dimensional (3D) polystyrene scaffolds to standard suspension cell cultures.
Methods: We aimed to mimic the structural support given by the lymph nodes during in vivo lymphocyte expansion.
Results: We observed an increase in cell proliferation compared with standard suspension systems as well as an enhanced cytotoxicity toward cancer cells. Moreover, we directly obtained the CAR T cells from peripheral blood mononuclear cells, thus minimizing the ex vivo manipulation of the therapeutic cells and opening the way to synergies among different cell populations.
Conclusions: We propose the use of commercially available 3D polystyrene systems to improve the current immune cell cultures and resulting cell products for emerging cellular (immuno)therapies.
Keywords: 3D cell culture; 3D scaffolds; CAR T cells; adoptive cell therapy; cell expansion; peripheral blood mononuclear cells.
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