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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jul 22.
Published in final edited form as: Discov Med. 2013 Dec;16(90):287–294.

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Structure and design of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). A) The extracellular, antigen binding domain of a CAR is typically derived from the single chain variable fragment (scFv) of a monoclonal antibody (MAb). The scFv segment is further linked to a transmembrane domain and an endodomain -- most commonly the signaling moiety of the T cell receptor (TCR) zeta chain. B) CARs are classified into 1st, 2nd, or 3rd generation products depending on the number of costimulatory endodomains (*, †) added to the construct. The most commonly used costimulatory endodomains in clinical and preclinical studies are CD27*, CD28*, inducible T-cell costimulator (ICOS)*, 4-1BB†, and OX40†.