Seven different monoclonal antibodies of theIgG class that are reactive with four different antigens on human lymphoid cells were utilized to form immunotoxins with the ribosome-inactivating proteins gelonin and the three known pokeweed antiviral proteins.Thirteen different immunotoxin combinations were prepared.The ribosome-inactivating proteins were modified with 2-iminothiolane.The sulfhydryl groups so introduced were reacted with maleimido groups or with dithiopyridyl groups that had been introduced into the antibodies.The toxin-antibody conjugates so formed were purified by affinity chromatography on protein A-Sepharose CL-4B, ion exchange chromatography, and by gel filtration and were characterized by polyacrylamide-dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis.The purified immunotoxins were free of nonconjugated monomeric proteins and aggregates of very high molecular weight.All the immunotoxins~showed the specific binding of the component antibody as measured by indirect immunofluorescence binding assays.The activities of the ribosome-inactivating proteins were unaffected by conjugation where the cross-link to the antibody contained a disulfide bond and when assayed after reductive cleavage of the linker.Disulfide-linked immunotoxins with six of the antibodies were highly cytotoxic for the target cells.However, immunotoxins containing an anti-B1 antibody showed no cytotoxicity.The possible use of antibodies to target pharmacologic agents, such as toxins, was first proposed by Ehrlich (1).Research to exploit this idea has developed rapidly in the last decade, owing much to the ability to produce pure highly specific monoclonal antibodies using the hybridoma technology ( 2 ) .Recently, monoclonal antibodies have been developed that recognize tumor-associated antigens (3, 4, 11, 12), and it is the hope that such antibodies can be exploited to deliver toxic agents to particular types of tumor cells in order to kill them selectively.The ribosome-inactivating proteins (5, 6) seem to be ideal toxic agents for this purpose.Most effort has been directed toward using ricin (extracted from castor beans, Ricinus communis) which consists of two nonidentical sub-
Two murine monoclonal antibodies, N901 (anti-CD56) and anti-B4 (anti-CD19), were humanized by a process we call "resurfacing." A systematic analysis of known antibody structures has been used to determine the relative solvent accessibility distributions of amino acid residues in murine and human antibody variable (Fv) regions and has shown that the sequence alignment positions of surface amino acids for human and murine variable region heavy (VH) and light (VL) chains are conserved with 98% fidelity across species. While the amino acid usage at these surface positions creates surface residue patterns that are conserved within species, there are no identical patterns across species. However, surprisingly few amino acid changes need to be made to convert a murine Fv surface pattern to that characteristic of a human surface. Resurfacing was used to change the patterns of surface accessible residues in the Fv regions of the N901 and anti-B4 antibodies to resemble those found on the Fv regions of human antibody sequences. Two different procedures for selecting a human sequence were compared. For anti-B4, a data base of clonally derived human VL-VH sequence pairs was used, while for N901, sequences for VL and VH were independently selected from the Kabat et al. data base [Kabat, E. A., Wu, T. T., Reid-Miller, M., Perry, H. M. & Gottesman, K. S. (1991) Sequences of Proteins of Immunological Interest (DHHS, Washington, DC), 5th Ed.]. Resurfaced N901 and anti-B4 antibodies had apparent affinities for their cell surface ligands that were identical to those of their respective parent murine antibodies. These data provide evidence that, despite the differences in the surfaces of mouse and human Fv regions, it is possible to substitute one for the other while retaining full antigen binding affinity.
The potential of immunoconjugates of cytotoxic drugs for the treatment of cancer has not yet been realized owing to the difficulty of delivering therapeutic concentrations of these drugs to the target cells. In an effort to overcome this problem we have synthesized maytansinoids that have 100- to 1000-fold higher cytotoxic potency than clinically used anticancer drugs. These maytansinoids are linked to antibodies via disulfide bonds, which ensures the release of fully active drug inside the cells. The conjugates show high antigen-specific cytotoxicity for cultured human cancer cells (50% inhibiting concentration, 10 to 40 pM), low systemic toxicity in mice, and good pharmacokinetic behavior.
We constructed a series of MAb heterodimers consisting of the J5 (anti-common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen [CALLA]) antibody and antibodies to a variety of structures present on the surface of activated human T cells, including CD3 antigen (T cell receptor-associated glycoproteins), CD2 antigen (T11/E-rosette receptor), CD25 antigen (IL-2 receptor), and the transferrin receptor. We tested the ability of these heterodimers to direct a CD2 + CD3 + CD8 + CD4 - CD25 + transferrin receptor + MHC-restricted human cytolytic T lymphocyte (CTL) clone to lyse a CALLA + human tumor in vitro. Only heterodimers containing an anti-CD3 antibody or activating antibodies to CD2 could direct the clone to lyse these human tumor targets, even when the clone was additionally activated with anti-CD3 or anti-CD2 antibodies. Our findings may have implications in the design of strategies for the use of such reagents in the treatment of human neoplasia.
Bis-indolyl-(seco)-1,2,9a-tetrahydrocyclopropa[c]benz[e]indol-4-on e compounds are synthetic analogues of CC-1065 that are highly cytotoxic toward a broad spectrum of tumor cell lines. One of these compounds, called DC1, was conjugated to antibodies via novel cleavable disulfide linkers. Conjugates of DC1 with murine mAbs anti-B4 and N901 directed against tumor-associated antigens CD19 and CD56, respectively, proved to be extremely potent and antigen selective in killing target cells in culture. DC1 conjugates with humanized versions of anti-B4 and N901 antibodies were also constructed and demonstrated to be as cytotoxic and selective as the respective murine antibody conjugates. The anti-B4-DC1 conjugate showed antitumor efficacy in an aggressive metastatic human B-cell lymphoma survival model in SCID mice and completely cured animals hearing large tumors. Anti-B4-DC1 was considerably more effective in this tumor model than doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, etoposide, or vincristine at their maximum tolerated doses.
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