Abstract
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is a powerful and promising tool for unleashing lasting antitumor immunity, which is currently studied in numerous blood and solid cancers. Here, mining single cell transcriptomics datasets of solid tumors, we survey many existing CAR targets, aiming to new solid tumor types in which these targets are differentially expressed in tumor cells and not on non-tumor cells within the tumor microenvironment, thus providing new repurposing opportunities. Quite surprisingly, we find that many existing solid cancer CAR targets have a better discriminatory power in uncharted cancer types than in the ones they have been developed or being tested for. Furthermore, we show that several existing liquid cancer CAR targets may also hold promise in specific solid tumors. Taken together, this analysis uncovers a large potential of repurposing current CARs that is currently yet untapped.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.