For a long time, tumor immunotherapy has been committed to how to overcome the tumor immune escape mechanism and re awaken immune cells to clear cancer cells. How to help T cells overcome tumor induced immunosuppression and achieve activation is the key to treatment research, Lightning real-time single cell immunology research system developed by Berkeley lights provides researchers with a comprehensive set of T cell research methods at the single cell level for T cell phenotype and cytokine detection workflow.

1. Combined with MHC tetramer technology, the system can label target T cells at the single cell level in microfluidic environment. Compared with the damage to cell activity detected by traditional FACS, lightning provides a rapid and mild MHC tetramer screening method for antigen-specific T cells.

2. It can directly detect the expression level of single cytotoxic T cell surface markers (CD8 + / CD4 + / CD137 +) and real-time secreted cytokines (IFN)- γ/ TNF α/ IL2, etc.).

3. The cytotoxicity of activated cytotoxic T cells can be tested in real time, so as to evaluate the cytotoxic activity of T cells online.

4. It provides a simplified and efficient T cell receptor development process with high affinity and specificity, which can complete the specific T cell efficient sorting (TCR screening) and cloning and function verification test completed in the original 1-3 months in only 2 days, Help researchers find the best T cell antigen receptor that can effectively bind to the target antigen in the shortest time.

5. In the research related to immunogenomics, the system can help researchers selectively export the target T cell / single T cell clone population after analysis and evaluation for subsequent experimental operations such as downstream sequencing.

In general, in the application of T cell modification and car-t / tcr-t and other cell therapy technologies, lightning helps researchers carry out the work processes of activity and function analysis, culture and cloning of T cells and their receptors in real time and efficiently by its unique way of single cell level research, Digital cytology has greatly accelerated the whole process of cellular immunotherapy research.

Application examples

Lightning helps T cell related research such as car-t and tcr-t. the two most common methods in the research of transgenic T cell targeted therapy of tumors are around the introduction of new T cell receptor (TCR) or chimeric antigen receptor (car) into genetically engineered T cells. Lightning real-time single cell immunology research system helps researchers study and construct car / TCR vector quickly and efficiently at the single cell level, and accelerates the T cell gene transformation process. T cell receptor modified T cell adoptive therapy tcr-t, in the traditional method of immune adoptive therapy that only increases the number of effector cells, is to introduce tumor antigen-specific TCR gene into T cells, so as to directly modify the "connector" TCR of T cells binding tumor antigen, increase the specificity of effector cells, and greatly improve the binding affinity between effector cells and tumor cells, Finally, it is a technology of targeted antitumor therapy after amplification in vitro and reinfusion into patients. This kind of gene modified T lymphocytes that can identify specific targets by infusion can endow the immune system with new natural immune activity. It can not only kill tumors quickly, but also avoid the delayed effect of traditional vaccines and T lymphocyte checkpoint therapy. However, the effective rate of target TCR gene therapy is relatively low. Researchers have always focused on finding effective TCR receptors with tumor target antigen cloning affinity and optimizing the transformation efficiency of TCR. The following figure shows the TCR development process. Compared with the traditional development process, the development and research process of discovering a large number of T cell receptors with high affinity and specificity based on lightning system.

The TCR development process on Lightning greatly simplifies and improves the existing complex and cumbersome methods. The specific T cell efficient sorting (TCR screening) and cloning and function verification tests completed in the original 1-3 months can be completed online in only 2 days, Help researchers find the best T cell antigen receptors (TCR candidates) that can effectively bind target antigens in the shortest time, and finally directly associate with the downstream sequencing process to help researchers directly obtain TCR sequences that specifically recognize tumor antigens for TCR drug development or vaccine research. Of course, it is not just TCR development. Lightning has helped researchers to carry out real-time and efficient work processes such as activity function analysis, culture and cloning of T cells and their receptors in other T cell modification and related applications of car-t cell therapy technology with its unique single-cell level research method, Digital cytology has greatly accelerated the whole process of cellular immunotherapy research.