BCMA; CD70

Class

Dual-target chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy — anti-BCMA / anti-CD70

Pathway

T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity against BCMA+/CD70+ tumor cells

BCMA (B-cell maturation antigen) and CD70 are two cell-surface proteins targeted together by this dual chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. BCMA is expressed almost exclusively on mature plasma cells and is a well-established target in multiple myeloma, a cancer of these cells. CD70 is found on activated immune cells and is also expressed by myeloma cells and several other tumor types. In CAR-T therapy, a patient's own T cells are engineered to display a synthetic receptor that recognizes a tumor antigen directly, bypassing the normal antigen-presentation steps, and then triggers the T cell to kill the bound tumor cell. Targeting two antigens rather than one addresses a key limitation of single-target CAR-T: tumor cells can survive by losing or reducing expression of the targeted protein, allowing relapse. A dual BCMA/CD70 construct is designed so that a tumor cell can still be recognized and killed if it retains either antigen, potentially reducing the chance of antigen-loss relapse and broadening the population of tumor cells that can be eliminated. This approach is relevant primarily to multiple myeloma, and possibly to other malignancies where both antigens co-occur.