Disruption of the CRL5 ubiquitin ligase complex enhances engineered T-cell persistence under chronic tumor antigen exposure

Abstract

Abstract Engineered T-cell therapies are limited by progressive dysfunction under chronic tumor antigen exposure, and genetic perturbation of negative regulators has emerged as a promising strategy to sustain effector activity. We reanalyzed a genome-wide CRISPR knockout screen in primary human T cells under repetitive tumor stimulation; protein–protein interaction mapping revealed seven members of the Cullin–RING Ligase 5 (CRL5) complex as an enriched hit cluster. Knockout of any of these members (CUL5, ARIH2, RNF7, UBE2F, UBE2L3, CISH, DCUN1D3) enhanced tumor serial killing, and CUL5, the complex scaffold, emerged as the strongest target. CUL5 knockout T cells exhibited sustained cytotoxicity, elevated effector cytokine production, and fewer exhaustion marker–positive cells while retaining antigen specificity and cytokine dependence. Quantitative ubiquitylation proteomics in resting, and acutely and chronically stimulated T cells mapped CRL5-dependent candidate substrates beyond the canonical JAK/STAT axis, including nutrient transporters, receptor trafficking proteins, and TCR signaling components. The benefit of CUL5 knockout extended across CARs targeting CD19, BCMA, and HER2 with different costimulatory domains, and to 1XX-modified CAR and HLA-independent TCR architectures. Combining CUL5 ablation with a tumor-induced IL-2 circuit produced tumor control across nine rounds of repetitive stimulation, whereas either modification alone eventually failed. In vivo, CUL5 knockout BCMA CAR T cells were enriched in the bone marrow following repeated tumor rechallenge and exhibited enhanced ex vivo cytotoxicity after nearly 90 days in tumor-bearing mice. These findings position CUL5 perturbation as a strategy to improve T-cell persistence and the efficacy of adoptive cell therapies, potentially with engineered cytokine support.