Fig. 2.

GD2 is a promising potential target for the treatment of GBM. A. The expression profile of B4GALNT1 (GD2 synthase) in different tumors. This gene was the most expressed in the brain tumor tissues among tumors derived from different tissues. B. The analysis of B4GALNT1 expression in different tumors according to samples from the TCGA database. C. Correlation between the expression of B4GALNT1 and the survival of GBM patients. D. GD2 expression in different GBM cells and patient-derived cell lines (GBM4). GD2 displayed a significant heterogeneous expression profile in various GBM cell lines. E-I. GD2-specific CAR-T exhibited local cytotoxicity against GD2-positive GBM cell lines. CAR-T-mediated cytotoxicity was measured by effector-to-target cell co-culture. CAR-T was co-cultured with different GBM cell lines at various indicated E/T ratios (ranging from 0.5:1 to 8:1) for 5 h. The efficacy of cytotoxicity was detected by LDH-releasing assay. J and K. Cytokines, including IFN-γ and TNF-α, were measured by ELISA during the CAR-T-mediated cytotoxicity assay. Following the co-culture of CAR-T with GBM cell lines, the supernatants were collected. Three independent assays were performed and data were presented as mean ± SEM. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001, ****p ≤ 0.0001. “ns” indicates statistically insignificant results.