System for Safer Cell Therapy

September 17, 2026

Double safety devices using a new suicide switch

A joint research group from the RIKEN CSRS, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Kyushu University has developed a protein “AuxiCasp9” that works as a suicide switch to arrest the function of cells engineered for disease treatment (engineered cells) by inducing programmed cell death (apoptosis) in the engineered cells.

In this study, the research group successfully developed AuxiCasp9, a switch that induces apoptosis, by artificially activating Caspase 9, a key driver for apoptosis, using a derivative of auxin, one of the plant hormones. It compared AuxiCasp9 with inducible Caspase 9 (iCasp9), a suicide switch already under consideration for a clinical trial, showing that the two switches operate independently without interfering with each other.

This study is expected to contribute to developing safer systems that arrest engineered cells' function using multiple stop switches when adverse effects occur in cell therapy, a field that has advanced in recent years.

 

Original article

ACS Synthetic Biology　DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.6c00010

S. Yoshimoto, S. S. Sugano, S. Sakuma, Y. Yamanishi, K. Dodo,

"Auxin-activated caspase 9 system (AuxiCasp9), a suicide switch for engineered cells".

Contact

Kosuke Dodo; Senior Research Scientist
Satoshi Yoshimoto; Postdoctoral Researcher
Catalysis and Integrated Research Group