Fratricide

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tumor-microenvironment

Fratricide is the antigen-specific killing of antigen-dressed cells by neighboring cells of the same lineage — for example, pMHC-dressed CD8 T cells being killed by other CD8 T cells after acquiring peptide-MHC via trogocytosis.

In CAR-T/CAR-NK therapy, fratricide among CAR-engineered cells (driven by trogocytosis of target antigen) is one of the mechanisms that undermines therapeutic efficacy, alongside antigen escape and exhaustion.

Source papers

  • Trogocytosis-mediated immune evasion in the tumor microenvironment Jeonghyun Kim, Soyeon Park, Jungseo Kim, Yewon Kim, Hong Min Yoon, Bima Rexa Rayhan, Jaekwang Jeong, Alfred L. M. Bothwell, Jae Hun Shin · 2025 doi:10.1038/s12276-024-01364-2