Humanization and epitope mapping of the H23 anti-MUC1 monoclonal antibody reveals a dual epitope specificity

Application of germline antibody features to vaccine development, antibody discovery, antibody optimization and disease diagnosis

Although the efficacy and commercial success of vaccines and therapeutic antibodies have been tremendous, designing and discovering new drug candidates remains a labor-, time- and cost-intensive endeavor with high risks. The main challenges of vaccine development are inducing a strong immune response in broad populations and providing effective prevention against a group of highly variable pathogens. Meanwhile, antibody discovery faces several great obstacles, especially the blindness in antibody screening and the unpredictability of the developability and druggability of antibody drugs. These challenges are largely due to poorly understanding of germline antibodies and the antibody responses to pathogen invasions. Thanks to the recent developments in high-throughput sequencing and structural biology, we have gained insight into the germline immunoglobulin (Ig) genes and germline antibodies and then the germline antibody features associated with antigens and disease manifestation. In this review, we firstly outline the broad associations between germline antibodies and antigens. Moreover, we comprehensively review the recent applications of antigen-specific germline antibody features, physicochemical properties-associated germline antibody features, and disease manifestation-associated germline antibody features on vaccine development, antibody discovery, antibody optimization, and disease diagnosis. Lastly, we discuss the bottlenecks and perspectives of current and potential applications of germline antibody features in the biotechnology field.

Aberrant MUC Immunohistochemical Expressions in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn disease (CD) are cryptogenic inflammatory bowel diseases that are suggestive of aberrant mucin (MUC) expression; however, their relationship remains unclear. Here, we examined aberrant MUC expression in intestinal samples from UC and CD patients in comparison to samples from patients with ischemic colitis and control groups. To study the expression of MUC1 , MUC5AC , and MUC6 in different patient groups, we reviewed the slides stained with hematoxylin and eosin and performed immunohistochemistry. The results revealed that MUC1 was expressed more in the UC group and MUC6 in the CD group. No significant changes were observed in MUC expression in the ischemic colitis group. Overall, we demonstrated changes in MUC expression in UC and CD, which can help in the diagnosis and early clinical management of UC and CD.

Engineering orthogonal human O-linked glycoprotein biosynthesis in bacteria

A major objective of synthetic glycobiology is to re-engineer existing cellular glycosylation pathways from the top down or construct non-natural ones from the bottom up for new and useful purposes. Here, we have developed a set of orthogonal pathways for eukaryotic O-linked protein glycosylation in Escherichia coli that installed the cancer-associated mucin-type glycans Tn, T, sialyl-Tn and sialyl-T onto serine residues in acceptor motifs derived from different human O-glycoproteins. These same glycoengineered bacteria were used to supply crude cell extracts enriched with glycosylation machinery that permitted cell-free construction of O-glycoproteins in a one-pot reaction. In addition, O-glycosylation-competent bacteria were able to generate an antigenically authentic Tn-MUC1 glycoform that exhibited reactivity with antibody 5E5, which specifically recognizes cancer-associated glycoforms of MUC1. We anticipate that the orthogonal glycoprotein biosynthesis pathways developed here will provide facile access to structurally diverse O-glycoforms for a range of important scientific and therapeutic applications.

Antibody Fc engineering improves frequency and promotes kinetic boosting of serial killing mediated by NK cells

The efficacy of most therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting tumor antigens results primarily from their ability to elicit potent cytotoxicity through effector-mediated functions. We have engineered the fragment crystallizable (Fc) region of the immunoglobulin G (IgG) mAb, HuM195, targeting the leukemic antigen CD33, by introducing the triple mutation Ser293Asp/Ala330Leu/Ile332Glu (DLE), and developed Time-lapse Imaging Microscopy in Nanowell Grids to analyze antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity kinetics of thousands of individual natural killer (NK) cells and mAb-coated target cells. We demonstrate that the DLE-HuM195 antibody increases both the quality and the quantity of NK cell-mediated antibody-dependent cytotoxicity by endowing more NK cells to participate in cytotoxicity via accrued CD16-mediated signaling and by increasing serial killing of target cells. NK cells encountering targets coated with DLE-HuM195 induce rapid target cell apoptosis by promoting simultaneous conjugates to multiple target cells and induce apoptosis in twice the number of target cells within the same period as the wild-type mAb. Enhanced target killing was also associated with increased frequency of NK cells undergoing apoptosis, but this effect was donor-dependent. Antibody-based therapies targeting tumor antigens will benefit from a better understanding of cell-mediated tumor elimination, and our work opens further opportunities for the therapeutic targeting of CD33 in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.

A high-affinity CDR-grafted antibody against influenza A H5N1 viruses recognizes a conserved epitope of H5 hemagglutinin

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus infection is still a potential threat to public health worldwide. While vaccines and antiviral drugs are currently under development, neutralizing antibodies could offer an alternative strategy to prevent and treat H5N1 virus infection. In the present study, we had developed a humanized antibody against H5N1 viruses from mouse-derived hybridoma in order to minimize its immunogenicity for potential clinical application. The humanized antibody hH5M9 was generated by transferring the mouse complementarity determining region (CDR) residues together with four key framework region (FR) residues onto the FR of the human antibody. This humanized antibody exhibited high affinity and specificity comparable to the parental mouse or chimeric counterpart with broad and strong neutralization activity against all H5N1 clades and subclades except for Egypt clades investigated. Furthermore, through epitope mapping we identified a linear epitope on the top region of hemagglutinin (HA) that was H5N1 specific and conserved. Our results for the first time reported a humanized antibody against H5N1 viruses by CDR grafting method. With the expected lower immunogenicity, this humanized antibody was expected to be more efficacious than murine or human-mouse chimeric antibodies for future application in humans.

Antibody targeting of cell-bound MUC1 SEA domain kills tumor cells

The cell-surface glycoprotein MUC1 is a particularly appealing target for antibody targeting, being selectively overexpressed in many types of cancers and a high proportion of cancer stem-like cells. However the occurrence of MUC1 cleavage, which leads to the release of the extracellular α subunit into the circulation where it can sequester many anti-MUC1 antibodies, renders the target problematic to some degree. To address this issue, we generated a set of unique MUC1 monoclonal antibodies that target a region termed the SEA domain that remains tethered to the cell surface after MUC1 cleavage. In breast cancer cell populations, these antibodies bound the cancer cells with high picomolar affinity. Starting with a partially humanized antibody, DMB5F3, we created a recombinant chimeric antibody that bound a panel of MUC1+ cancer cells with higher affinities relative to cetuximab (anti-EGFR1) or tratuzumab (anti-erbB2) control antibodies. DMB5F3 internalization from the cell surface occurred in an efficient temperature-dependent manner. Linkage to toxin rendered these DMB5F3 antibodies to be cytotoxic against MUC1+ cancer cells at low picomolar concentrations. Our findings show that high-affinity antibodies to cell-bound MUC1 SEA domain exert specific cytotoxicity against cancer cells, and they point to the SEA domain as a potential immunogen to generate MUC1 vaccines.

Epitope Mapping of PR81 anti-MUC1 Monoclonal Antibody Following PEPSCAN and Phage Display Techniques

PR81 is an anti-MUC1 monoclonal antibody (MAb) which was generated against human MUC1 mucin that reacted with breast cancerous tissue, MUC1 positive cell line (MCF-7, BT-20, and T-4 7 D), and synthetic peptide, including the tandem repeat sequence of MUC1. Here we characterized the binding properties of PR81 against the tandem repeat of MUC1 by two different epitope mapping techniques, namely, PEPSCAN and phage display. Epitope mapping of PR81 MAb by PEPSCAN revealed a minimal consensus binding sequence, PDTRP, which is found on MUC1 peptide as the most important epitope. Using the phage display peptide library, we identified the motif PD(T/S/G)RP as an epitope and the motif AVGLSPDGSRGV as a mimotope recognized by PR81. Results of these two methods showed that the two residues, arginine and aspartic acid, have important roles in antibody binding and threonine can be substituted by either glycine or serine. These results may be of importance in tailor making antigens used in immunoassay.

Design of synthetic antibody libraries

Antibody libraries came into existence 15 years ago when the accumulating sequence data of immunoglobulin genes and the advent of polymerase chain reaction technology made it possible to clone antibody gene repertoires. Since then, virtually hundreds of antibody libraries have been constructed, employing limitless maneuvers from the antibody engineering molecular bag of tricks towards the crucial parameters that determine library quality, library size, diversity and robustness. Phage and additional display and screening technologies were applied to pan out desired binding specificities from antibody libraries. Several biotech companies established themselves as key operators in the multibillion-dollar field of recombinant antibody technology. Out of nineteen FDA-approved therapeutic antibodies, one was isolated from an antibody library and many more are in various stages of clinical evaluation. This review highlights key milestones in the short history of antibody libraries and attempts to predict the future impact of antibody libraries on drug discovery.

Antibody internalization studied using a novel IgG binding toxin fusion

Targeted therapy encompasses a wide variety of different strategies, which can be divided into direct or indirect approaches. Direct approaches target tumor-associated antigens by monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) binding to the relevant antigens or by small-molecule drugs that interfere with these proteins. Indirect approaches rely on tumor-associated antigens expressed on the cell surface with antibody-drug conjugates or antibody-based fusion proteins containing different kinds of effector molecules. To deliver a lethal cargo into tumor cells, the targeting antibodies should efficiently internalize into the cells. Similarly, to qualify as targets for such drugs newly-discovered cell-surface molecules should facilitate the internalization of antibodies that bind to them. Internalization can be studied be several biochemical and microscopy approaches. An undisputed proof of internalization can be provided by the ability of an antibody to specifically deliver a drug into the target cells and kill it. We present a novel IgG binding toxin fusion, ZZ-PE38, in which the Fc-binding ZZ domain, derived from Streptococcal protein A, is linked to a truncated Pseudomonas exotoxin A, the preparation of complexes between ZZ-PE38 and IgGs that bind tumor cells and the specific cytotoxicity of such immunocomplexes is reported. Our results suggest that ZZ-PE38 could prove to be an invaluable tool for the evaluation of the suitability potential of antibodies and their cognate cell-surface antigens to be targeted by immunotherapeutics based on armed antibodies that require internalization.