Human Placental CD34+-Derived Natural Killer Cells with High Affinity and Cleavage Resistant CD16 (CYNK-101) for ADCC Mediated Cancer Immunotherapy

CYNK-101, an allogeneic off-the-shelf human placental CD34+-derived natural killer (NK) cell product, is genetically modified to express a variant of CD16 (FcγRIII) via lentiviral vector transduction. When targeting tumors with monoclonal antibodies, NK cells are key effectors of antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) following recognition of antibody Fc by CD16. CYNK-101 expresses the CD16 variant (CD16VP) which has a high-affinity due to a Valine at amino acid position 158 along with proteolytic cleavage resistance imparted by Proline at amino acid position 1971,2,3,4. We hypothesize that expressing CD16VP enhances anti-tumor activity of CYNK-101 in combination with monoclonal antibody therapy. Reported here are the in vitro and ex vivo results of evaluating CYNK-101 cytotoxicity against human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)+ solid tumors in combination with Trastuzumab, an anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody. Human placental CD34+ cells were transduced with lentivirus expressing CD16VP, and cultured in the presence of cytokines, including TPO, SCF, Flt3L, IL-7, IL-15, and IL-2, to generate CYNK-101 cells. Lentiviral transduction with CD16VP achieved high expression efficiency in multiple placental CD34+ donors. These cells (n=7) expanded at 12041 ± 6394-fold and differentiated into CYNK-101 being >90% CD56+CD3-. CYNK-101 expressed 74.1 ± 5.6% (n=7) of CD16 at the end of cultivation. Proteolytic cleavage resistance conferred by CD16VP in CYNK-101 was evaluated by activating NK cells with PMA/ionomycin (PMAi) to induce CD16 shedding. While 4h PMAi treatment resulted in >89% CD16 cleavage on non-transduced NK cells,