Functional design of chimeric T-cell antigen receptors for adoptive immunotherapy of cancer: architecture and outcomes.

Adoptive immunotherapy using genetically modified T-cells with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) is a promising modality for cancer treatment, because the CAR-grafted T-cells can directly recognize and kill tumor cells, expressing a specific tumor-associated antigen (TAA), in a human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-independent manner. Optimal molecular designs of the CAR and a careful choice of the target TAA are requisite to attain a significant response in CAR-mediated therapy. This review provides a brief overview of the past studies and the present state of CAR research, especially focusing on the development of the CAR protein architecture.