In situ synthesis of aptamer‐based polyvalent antibody mimic on the cell surface for enhanced immune‐cancer cell interactions

An ability to promote therapeutic immune cells to recognize cancer cells is important for the success of cell-based cancer immunotherapy. We present a synthetic method for functionalizing the surface of natural killer (NK) cells with a supramolecular aptamer-based polyvalent antibody mimic (PAM). PAM is synthesized on the cell surface through nucleic acid assembly and hybridization. The data show that PAM has superiority over its monovalent counterpart in powering NKs for binding to cancer cells, and that PAM-engineered NK cells exhibit the capability of killing cancer cells more effectively. Notably, aptamers can in principle be discovered against any cell receptors; moreover, aptamers can be replaced with any other ligands to develop PAM. Thus, this work has successfully demonstrated a technology platform for promoting immune-cancer cell interactions.