Amanda A. van Vliet, Ella Peters, Denise Vodegel, Daniëlle Steenmans, Monica Raimo, Susan Gibbs, Tanja D. de Gruijl, Adil D. Duru, Jan Spanholtz, and Anna-Maria Georgoudaki
iScience, June 08, 2023
Natural killer (NK) cell therapy is a promising treatment option for certain hematological malignancies and growing evidence suggests it may also be effective against solid tumors like melanoma. In this study, scientists investigate the anti-tumor activity of Glycostem Therapeutics’ umbilical cord blood (UCB) CD34+ progenitor cell-derived NK cell product (called GTA002) against melanoma cell lines in vitro using Axion’s Maestro Z live-cell analysis platform and other methods. The Maestro Z was also used to determine the mode of action involved in NK cytolytic activity against melanoma, namely multimodal activation of different NK receptors. Overall, the results demonstrate that “GTA002 NK cells derived from UCB progenitor cells is a novel off-the-shelf cell therapy product with the capacity to exert potent anti-tumor activity against melanoma, using multimodal activation of several NK cell receptors and with TRAIL being a major contributor to the enhancement of early cytotoxicity in both 2D and 3D settings.”
