Fig. 2.

Advantages and disadvantages of each strategy of adoptive cell transfer. Tumor-specific T/NK-cells can be derived using three ways, namely from tumor (tumor-infiltrating T cells (TILs)), cultured from naïve T cells (cytotoxic T cells) or genetically engineered (chimeric antigen receptor T cells). Harvest of TILs ensure heterogeneous T cells with a large repertoire. However, not all tumors have sufficient TILs for treatment. In vitro generation of tumor-specific T cells from peripheral T cells circumvent this limitation of TILs. Yet, both types of T cells rely on stable antigen-MHC expression. To overcome this, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells is designed. Besides, NK cells can also be genetically engineered to target tumor cells. NK CAR has less “on-target, off-tumor” toxicity due to the short lifespan.