CAR-engineered microglia harness phagocytosis to target brain tumor in organoid models.

CAR-engineered microglia selectively eliminate GBM cells through phagocytosis in organoid models, showing increased phagocytic activity and tumor transcript internalization.

• Why it matters: Glioblastoma remains highly lethal with limited effective treatments, and current CAR T cell therapies have limited success in GBM, highlighting the need for alternative immunotherapies.
• What they did: Researchers developed a CAR-MG platform by engineering human microglia to target EGFRvIII, testing their ability to eliminate GBM cells in 2D co-cultures and 3D organoid models, with single-cell RNA sequencing revealing enhanced phagocytic pathways.
• The result: CAR-MG infiltrated tumor sites and depleted GBM cells over extended culture, supporting their potential as a myeloid CAR therapy for human brain tumor models.