Transport across the primate blood-brain barrier of a genetically engineered chimeric monoclonal antibody to the human insulin receptor.

PURPOSE: Brain drug targeting may be achieved by conjugating drugs, that normally do not cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), to brain drug delivery vectors. The murine 83-14 MAb to the human insulin receptor (HIR) is a potential brain drug targeting vector that could be used in humans, if this MAb was genetically engineered to form a chimeric antibody. where most of the immunogenic murine sequences are replaced by human antibody sequence. METHODS: The present studies describe the production of the gene for the chimeric HIRMAb, expression and characterization of the protein, radiolabeling of the chimeric HIRMAb with 111-indium and 125-iodine, and quantitative autoradiography of living primate brain taken 2 hours after intravenous administration of the [111In]chimeric HIRMAb. RESULTS: The chimeric HIRMAb had identical affinity to the target antigen as the murine HIRMAb based on Western blotting and immunoradiometric assay using partially purified HIR affinity purified from serum free conditioned media produced by a CHO cell line secreting soluble HIR. The [125I]chimeric HIRMAb was avidly bound to isolated human brain capillaries, and this binding was blocked by the murine HIRMAb. The [111In]chimeric HIRMAb was administered intravenously to an anesthetized Rhesus monkey, and the 2 hour brain scan showed robust uptake of the chimeric antibody by the living primate brain. CONCLUSIONS: A genetically engineered chimeric HIRMAb has been produced, and the chimeric antibody has identical reactivity to the human and primate BBB HIR as the original murine antibody. This chimeric HIRMAb may be used in humans for drug targeting through the BBB of neurodiagnostic or neurotherapeutic drugs that normally do not cross the BBB.

The role of carbohydrate in the assembly and function of polymeric IgG.

The carbohydrate present on glycoprotein can influence their biologic and functional properties. In the present paper we have assessed the role of oligosaccharides in the polymerization and effector functions of IgG with the 18 amino acid extension of IgM added to its carboxy terminus (IgGmutp). We found that IgG1mutp and IgG3mutp lacking the carbohydrate addition site in C(H)2, in the tail-piece or both assembled into polymers as well as the glycosylated versions. Aglycosylated polymers retained the ability to activate complement as assayed by C1q binding and hemolysis, although they were not as effective as their wild type polymer counterparts. Although IgGmutp lacking the carbohydrate in the tail-piece was able to bind to FcgammaRII, completely aglycosylated polymers lost the ability to bind to both FcgammaRI and FcgammaRII, suggesting a critical role for the C(H)2 sugar in FcR binding. Absence of the mutp carbohydrate increased the half life of polymeric IgG1, whereas absence of the carbohydrate in C(H)2 accelerated the clearance rate.

Structural requirements for polymeric immunoglobulin assembly and association with J chain.

Both IgM and IgA exist as polymeric immunoglobulins. IgM is assembled into pentamers with J chain and hexamers lacking J chain. In contrast, polymeric IgA exists mostly as dimers with J chain. Both IgM and IgA possess an 18-amino acid extension of the C terminus (the tail-piece (tp)) that participates in polymerization through a penultimate cysteine residue. The IgM (mutp) and IgA (alphatp) tail-pieces differ at seven amino acid positions. However, the tail-pieces by themselves do not determine the extent of polymerization. We now show that the restriction of polymerization to dimers requires both C(alpha)3 and alphatp and that more efficient dimer assembly occurs when C(alpha)2 is also present; the dimers contain J chain. Formation of pentamers containing J chain requires C(mu)3, C(mu)4, and the mutp. IgM-alphatp is present mainly as hexamers lacking J chain, and mumugammamu-utp forms tetramers and hexamers lacking J chain, whereas IgA-mutp is present as high order polymers containing J chain. In addition, there is heterogeneous processing of the N-linked carbohydrate on IgA-mutp, with some remaining in the high mannose state. These data suggest that in addition to the tail-piece, structural motifs in the constant region domains are critical for polymer assembly and J chain incorporation.

Position effects of variable region carbohydrate on the affinity and in vivo behavior of an anti-(1-->6) dextran antibody.

IgG is a glycoprotein with an N-linked carbohydrate structure attached to the CH2 domain of each of its heavy chains. In addition, the variable regions of IgG often contain potential N-linked carbohydrate addition sequences that frequently result in the attachment of V region carbohydrate. Nonetheless, the precise role of this V region glycan remains unclear. Studies from our laboratory have shown that a naturally occurring somatic mutant of an anti-dextran Ab that results in a carbohydrate addition site at Asn58 of the VH has carbohydrate in the complementarity-determining region 2 (CDR2) of the VH, and the presence of carbohydrate leads to an increase in affinity. However, carbohydrate attached to nearby positions within CDR2 had variable affects on affinity. In the present work we have extended these studies by adding carbohydrate addition sites close to or within all the CDRs of the same anti-dextran Ab. We find that carbohydrate is attached to all the novel addition sites, but the extent of glycosylation varies with the position of the site. In addition, we find that the position of the variable region carbohydrate influences some functional properties of the Ab, including those usually associated with the V region such as affinity for Ag as well as other characteristics typically attributed to the Fc such as half-life and organ targeting. These studies suggest that modification of variable region glycosylation provides an alternate strategy for manipulating the functional attributes of the Ab molecule and may shed light on how changes in carbohydrate structure affect protein conformation.

Design and production of novel tetravalent bispecific antibodies.

We have produced novel bispecific antibodies by fusing the DNA encoding a single chain antibody (ScFv) after the C terminus (CH3-ScFv) or after the hinge (Hinge-ScFv) with an antibody of a different specificity. The fusion protein is expressed by gene transfection in the context of a murine variable region. Transfectomas secrete a homogeneous population of the recombinant antibody with two different specificities, one at the N terminus (anti-dextran) and one at the C terminus (anti-dansyl). The CH3-ScFv antibody, which maintains the constant region of human IgG3, has some of the associated effector functions such as long half-life and Fc receptor binding. The Hinge-ScFv antibody which lacks the CH2 and CH3 domains has no known effector functions.

Bifunctional fusion between nerve growth factor and a transferrin receptor antibody.

The cDNAs encoding the variable regions of the heavy and light chains of a murine antibody specific for the human TfR were cloned and a human chimera (gamma1, kappa) was produced. A gene fusion was created by joining the 3' end of the coding region of the human nerve growth factor (NGF) precursor to the 5' end of the heavy chain variable region of the chimeric antibody. When expressed with the unmodified light chain in mammalian cells, the protein fusion is properly processed, assembled, and secreted. Subsequent purification and characterization established the uncompromised bifunctional activities of the protein, relative to the unmodified components, as demonstrated by its ability to both bind to the human TfR and induce neurite outgrowth in primary sympathetic or spinal ganglia and in trkA-transfected pheochromocytoma cells. The ability to generate biologically active NGF fused to a TfR targeting antibody, which was previously shown to cross the blood-brain barrier, may offer a novel way to deliver NGF and other neurotrophic factors to the central nervous system.

The hinge as a spacer contributes to covalent assembly and is required for function of IgG.

Chimeric IgG3 lacking a genetic hinge but with Cys residues in CH2 between position 231 and 232 (IgG3 deltaH+Cys) and position 279 (IgG3 deltaH+2Cys) produced by site-directed mutagenesis have been found to be deficient in their intermolecular assembly. Although some H2L2 molecules are formed, significant quantities of assembly intermediates, in particular HL, are found in the secretions. Both IgG3 deltaH+Cys and IgG3 deltaH+2Cys were greatly reduced in their ability to bind Fc gammaRI. They also failed to bind C1q and activate the complement cascade. Addition of the tailpiece from IgM (microtp) to IgG3 deltaH+Cys (yielding IgG3 deltaH+Cys microtp) failed to lead to efficient oligomerization. IgG3 deltaH+Cys microtp failed to bind Fc gammaRII. However, at high concentrations it was able to bind C1q and effect complement-dependent cytolysis. It consumed complement in the absence of added Ag, indicating that removing the flexible hinge was not sufficient to yield polymeric IgG that resembled IgM in its dependence on added Ag for complement activation.

Addition of a mu-tailpiece to IgG results in polymeric antibodies with enhanced effector functions including complement-mediated cytolysis by IgG4.

The 18-amino acid carboxyl-terminal tailpiece from IgM (mutp) has now been added to the carboxyl-termini of IgG1, IgG2, IgG3, and IgG4 constant regions to produce recombinant IgM-like IgGs. Polymeric IgGs obtained by this approach possess up to six Fcs and 12 antigen-combining sites, greatly increasing the avidity of their interactions with other molecules. Not surprisingly, the C activity of normally active IgG1 and IgG3 and somewhat less active IgG2 Abs is shown to be dramatically enhanced upon polymerization. The multiple Fcs present in a single molecule apparently allow for more efficient interactions with the multiple C1q heads present in C1, the first component of the classical C cascade. An unexpected result however, is that IgG4, normally devoid of C activity, when polymerized in the same fashion directs C-mediated lysis of target cells almost as effectively as the other polymers. Interestingly though, IgG4mutp does not deplete C activity in a standard consumption assay using soluble Ag. The other gamma mutp isotypes are capable of depleting 100% of the serum lytic ability even in the absence of Ag, whereas IgG4mutp shows no evidence of activity in this assay under any of the conditions tested. Additionally, we show that, in contrast to monomeric IgG, polymeric IgGs bind with very high affinity to Fc gamma receptor II (Fc gamma RII), a low affinity receptor for wild-type antibodies; however, binding to Fc gamma Rl, the high affinity receptor, appears to be unaltered. Finally, the in vivo t1/2 of the gamma mutp proteins is decreased relative to wild-type IgG, apparently because of rapid clearance of the polymeric fraction.

Therapeutic human antibodies derived from PCR amplification of B-cell variable regions.

Despite advances in the in vitro immunization of human B cells (Borrebaeck et al. 1988) and the development of immunodeficient mice (McCune et al. 1988) for the reconstitution of the human immune system ex vivo, immortalization of antigen-specific human B cells remains the limiting step in the generation of human monoclonal antibodies. Typically this is performed with the aid of Epstein-Barr virus transformation followed by subcloning, confirmation of antigen binding and hybridization of the B lymphoblasts to a suitable fusion partner such as GLI-H7. This general approach is effective and widely used; however, it is time-consuming with erratic results. These were the immediate reasons we and others devised methods to directly obtain the variable regions from small numbers of human B cells (Larrick et al. 1987). The success of the PCR-based approach is illustrated above. In the present studies we successfully captured and stably produced antibodies from the V regions of two potent human anti-tetanus antibodies secreted by heteromyelomas that were too unstable for scale-up production. Although further preclinical evaluation of these antibodies is in progress, results to date indicate that the recombinant antibodies produced in myeloma-based cell lines or CHO cells are equivalent in binding specificity and activity to the native heteromyeloma-derived antibodies. Recent studies from this laboratory indicate that effective anti-tetanus protection will require a cocktail of anti-tetanus antibodies. Details of this work will be the subject of a future communication (Lang et al., in preparation).

Novel vectors for the expression of antibody molecules using variable regions generated by polymerase chain reaction.

A new family of vectors has been produced which facilitates the cloning and expression of immunoglobulin variable regions cloned by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The vectors are designed to express the cloned variable regions joined to human constant regions and take advantage of priming in the leader sequence so that no amino acid changes will be introduced into the mature antibody molecule. Both the heavy chain and light chain vectors utilize a murine VH promoter provided with an EcoRV restriction site so that the amplified variable regions can be directly cloned into a functional promoter. For the heavy chain an NheI restriction site has been generated at the first two amino acids of CH1 and the cloned leader and variable region are fused directly to the CH1 domain of the constant region. When the leader and variable regions of the light chain were fused directly to C kappa, no expression was observed. Therefore the light chain expression vector was designed with a SalI restriction site for cloning into a splice junction 3' of the variable region; VL then is joined to C kappa by splicing. Both vectors direct the expression of functional, fully assembled immunoglobulin molecules with the expected molecular weight. Use of redundant oligomers to prime the PCR permits the cloning and expression of recombinant antibodies without any prior information as to their sequence and makes it possible to rapidly generate recombinant antibodies from any monoclonal antibody producing cell line.

Primer design for the cloning of immunoglobulin heavy-chain leader-variable regions from mouse hybridoma cells using the PCR.

To facilitate the rapid cloning and sequencing of rearranged murine heavy-chain variable regions, we have designed a set of universal primers using conserved sequences of leader (signal peptide), framework one and constant regions of the immunoglobulin heavy-chain genes. RNA was extracted from the mouse hybridoma cells secreting monoclonal antibodies: IOR-T3 (anti-CD3), C6 (anti-P1 of N. meningitidis B385), IOR-T1 (anti-CD6), CB-CEA.1 (anti-carcinoembryonic antigen), CB-Fib.1 (anti-human fibrin) and CB-Hep.2 (anti-hepatitis B surface antigen). First-strand cDNA was synthesized and amplified using PCR. The primers successfully amplified correct size fragments from cDNA prepared from all hybridomas. These methods will facilitate the cloning and sequencing of mouse immunoglobulin variable regions.

Effect of Somatostatin on TSH levels in non-toxic sporadic goiter.

Somatostatin (SS-14; growth hormone-release inhibiting hormone) was infused into eight patients with non-toxic sporadic goiter and into eleven normal control subjects. Each patient was given 150 microgram(s) of somatostatin as an intravenous bolus and 350 microgram(s) by infusion over a period of 60 minutes. Somatostatin did not lower the basal TSH levels as compared to the pre-infusion levels in this type of goiter, but produced a decrease in the TSH response to TRH during and after the infusion.

Specific amplification of rearranged immunoglobulin variable region genes from mouse hybridoma cells.

In this article we show how the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and primers designed for conserved sequences of leader (L), framework one (FR1) and constant (CONST) regions of immunoglobulin light and heavy chain genes can be used for the cloning and sequencing of rearranged antibody variable regions from mouse hybridoma cells. RNA was extracted from the mouse hybridoma cells secreting MAbs: IOR-T3a (anti-CD3), C6 (anti-P1 of N. meningitidis B385), IOR-T1 (anti-CD6), CB-CEA.1 (anti-carcinoembryonic antigen), and CB-Fib.1 (anti-human fibrin). First strand cDNA was synthesized and amplified using PCR. The newly designed primers are superior to others reported recently in the literature. Isolated PCR DNA fragments of C6 and IOR-T3a were sequenced after asymmetric amplification, or M13 cloning. The FR1/CONST primer combinations selectively amplified mouse lights chain of groups kappa II, V, and VI, and heavy chains of groups IIa and IIc. The L/CONST primers for light chains amplified light chains from all four hybridomas. These methods greatly facilitate structural and functional studies of antibodies by reducing the efforts required to clone and sequence their variable regions.

Serologic and molecular characterization of a human monoclonal rheumatoid factor derived from rheumatoid synovial cells.

Molecular characterization of rheumatoid factors (RF) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been hampered because of their polyclonality. To overcome this problem, we generated monoclonal RF-secreting hybridomas from rheumatoid synovial cells. Among the RF-secreting hybridomas, HAF10 secreted an IgM-RF that was monospecific for human IgG. It bound well to IgG1 and IgG2, but not to IgG3 and IgG4. Sequence analysis of its heavy and light chains showed that it contained a VH1 heavy chain and a V lambda light chain that did not belong to any known lambda light chain subgroup, and therefore, probably represented a new lambda subgroup. These results indicated that both the heavy and light chains of a monoclonal IgM-RF from rheumatoid synovial cells were quite different from the reported variable region sequences of several monoclonal RF derived mainly from patients with mixed cryoglobulinemia. Further studies of additional monoclonal RF from RA patients are warranted to define precisely their genetic basis and to further our understanding of the immunopathology of RA.

Immunoglobulin V regions of a bactericidal anti-Neisseria meningitidis outer membrane protein monoclonal antibody.

C6 is a potentially therapeutic murine monoclonal antibody that recognizes the class 1 outer membrane protein of Neisseria meningitidis. C6 specifically immunoblots this antigen and augments in vitro killing of N. meningitidis bacteria. We describe a general method of obtaining the heavy and light chain variable-region sequence from immunoglobulin-secreting cells. The method uses mixed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers designed from the 5' end of the framework 1 (FR1) sequences of the heavy and light chains, and 3'-end primers for constant-region conserved sequences. The method has been applied to the cloning and sequencing of the variable region of C6 to construct a humanized monoclonal antibody. Rapid amplification and sequencing of variable regions by this general method have multiple applications in the study of the immune response to infectious diseases.