Development of off-the-shelf hematopoietic stem cell-engineered invariant natural killer T cells for COVID-19 therapeutic intervention

Abstract

Here, we report a method to robustly produce therapeutic levels of ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells. Preclinical studies showed that these ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells closely resembled endogenous human iNKT cells, could reduce SARS-CoV-2 virus infection load and mitigate virus infection-induced hyperinflammation, and meanwhile were free of GvHD-risk and resistant to T cell-mediated allorejection. These results support the development of ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells as a promising off-the-shelf cell product for treating COVID-19; such a cell product has the potential to target the new emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants as well as the future new emerging viruses.