{"doi":"10.1002/adma.202309860","title":"Surface‐Functionalized Microgels as Artificial Antigen‐Presenting Cells to Regulate Expansion of T Cells","abstract":"Artificial antigen-presenting cells (aAPCs) are currently used to manufacture T cells for adoptive therapy in cancer treatment, but a readily tunable and modular system can enable both rapid T cell expansion and control over T cell phenotype. Here, it is shown that microgels with tailored surface biochemical properties can serve as aAPCs to mediate T cell activation and expansion. Surface functionalization of microgels is achieved via layer-by-layer coating using oppositely charged polymers, forming a thin but dense polymer layer on the surface. This facile and versatile approach is compatible with a variety of coating polymers and allows efficient and flexible surface-specific conjugation of defined peptides or proteins. The authors demonstrate that tethering appropriate stimulatory ligands on the microgel surface efficiently activates T cells for polyclonal and antigen-specific expansion. The expansion, phenotype, and functional outcome of primary mouse and human T cells can be regulated by modulating the concentration, ratio, and distribution of stimulatory ligands presented on microgel surfaces as well as the stiffness and viscoelasticity of the microgels.","journal":"Advanced Materials","year":2024,"id":420862,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":32,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9503,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1212427,"name":"Charlotte Meyer","orcid":"0009-0005-5599-9127","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1120868,"name":"Einat B. Vitner","orcid":"0000-0001-8578-8551","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843852,"name":"Kwasi Adu‐Berchie","orcid":"0000-0002-1959-6794","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1036013,"name":"Mason T. Dacus","orcid":"0000-0002-2192-5382","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1212428,"name":"Giovanni Bovone","orcid":"0000-0002-8508-0737","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1212429,"name":"Anqi Chen","orcid":"0000-0003-0670-1927","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1030169,"name":"Tania To","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":20636,"name":"David A. Weitz","orcid":"0000-0001-6678-5208","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":65893,"name":"David Mooney","orcid":"0000-0001-6299-1194","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":640173,"name":"Junzhe Lou","orcid":"0000-0002-3034-2445","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":63,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:57:31.041511Z","pmid":"38615189","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}