| abstract |
The present invention relates to engineered membrane proteins comprising: (i) a signal peptide, (ii) an extracellular antigen recognition domain, derived from the variable domains of γδ T cell receptor chains (iii) an (optional) spacer region (iv) a transmembrane region and (v) an intracellular effector domain. The present invention furthermore relates to nucleic acids encoding the proteins, expression constructs for expressing the protein in a host cell and host cells. The proteins of the invention are chimeric antigen receptors, that due to their antigen binding region allow to redirect the effector functions of immune cells against a broad spectrum of cancer or virally infected cells. Hence the chimeric antigen receptors of the invention can be used to generate therapeutic cells, suitable for the immunological treatment of malignant or viral disease. The present invention also relates to methods for generating antigen-specific effector cells as well as to methods for the treatment of diseases, in particular, cancer, and methods of immunotherapy, preferably including adoptive, target-cell specific immunotherapy. |