Rekombinante Antikörper gegen tumorassoziiertes MUC1

In Adenokarzinomen wie dem Mammakarzinom wird das tumorassoziierte Antigen MUC1 überexprimiert, dessen extrazelluläre Domäne zum größten Teil aus einem als VNTR (variable number of tandem repeats)-Region bezeichneten Abschnitt besteht. Aufgrund einer im Vergleich zu normalem MUC1 veränderten, weniger starken Glykosylierung der VNTR-Region entstehen in tumorassoziiertem MUC1 neue antigene Determinanten auf Basis der Peptidsequenz und der veränderten Glykosylierung. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit sollten aus dem Blut von Mammakarzinom-Patientinnen, die wiederholt mit einem synthetischen MUC1-Glykopeptid der VNTR-Region immunisiert worden waren, rekombinante single chain Fv-Antikörperfragmente (scFv-Fragmente) mit spezifischer Bindung an die VNTR-Region von tumorassoziiertem MUC1 gewonnen werden. Ausgehend von cDNA, die aus den peripheren Lymphozyten von mit einem synthetischen MUC1-Glykopeptid immunisierten Mammakarzinom-Patientinnen gewonnen wurde, konnten mittels PCR die für die variablen schweren und leichten Antikörperketten (VH und VL) kodierenden Gene amplifiziert werden. Durch Klonierung der VH- und VL-Gene in das Phagemid pSEX81 wurden rekombinante scFv-Antikörpergenbibliotheken hergestellt, die anschließend für eine in vitro-Selektion mit Hilfe des Phagendisplays eingesetzt wurden. Aus einer der generierten Antikörpergenbibliotheken konnte durch ein kombinatorisches Panning auf tumorassoziiertem MUC1 sowie synthetischem MUC1-Glykopeptid der VNTR-Region ein Antikörperklon mit der gewünschten Spezifität isoliert werden. Die für das isolierte Antikörperfragment kodierenden Gene wurden in den Vektor pOPE101 kloniert, um ein lösliches rekombinantes scFv-Fragment im periplasmatischen Raum von E. coli zu exprimieren. Das so produzierte scFv-Fragment IIB6 wurde nach erfolgreicher affinitätschromatographischer Reinigung aus periplasmatischen Extrakten bezüglich seiner Spezifität und Affinität analysiert. In ELISA-Bindungsstudien sowie einem Immunoblot wurde die spezifische Bindung des scFv-Fragments IIB6 an die VNTR-Region von tumorassoziiertem MUC1 belegt, wobei das minimale Epitop des Antikörperfragments die Aminosäuresequenz TRPAP besitzt. Außerdem wurde mit Hilfe einer FACS-Analyse gezeigt, dass das Antikörperfragment IIB6 spezifisch an natives, von Zellen der Mammakarzinom-Zelllinie T47D präsentiertes MUC1 bindet. Die mit Hilfe der Oberflächen-Plasmon-Resonanz ermittelten Affinitäten des generierten scFv-Fragments zu tumorassoziiertem MUC1 und synthetischem MUC1-Glykopeptid betragen 2,75 x 10-7 M bzw. 2,28 x 10-7 M. Das generierte scFv-Fragment IIB6 stellt damit ein potentiell geeignetes Ausgangsprodukt für die Herstellung eines vollständig humanen IgG-Antikörpers oder von Antikörperfusionsproteinen zur Behandlung des Mammakarzinoms sowie anderer MUC1-überexprimierender Adenokarzinome dar

Electronic Quantum Coherence in Glycine Molecules Probed with Ultrashort X-ray Pulses in Real Time

Structural changes in nature and technology are driven by charge carrier motion. A process such as charge-directed reactivity that can be operational in radiobiology is more efficient, if energy transfer and charge motion proceeds along well-defined quantum mechanical pathways keeping the coherence and minimizing dissipation. The open question is: do long-lived electronic quantum coherences exist in complex molecules? Here, we use x-rays to create and monitor electronic wave packets in the amino acid glycine. The outgoing photoelectron wave leaves behind a positive charge formed by a superposition of quantum mechanical eigenstates. Delayed x-ray pulses track the induced electronic coherence through the photoelectron emission from the sequential double photoionization processes. The observed sinusoidal modulation of the detected electron yield as a function of time clearly demonstrates that electronic quantum coherence is preserved for at least 25 femtoseconds in this molecule of biological relevance. The surviving coherence is detected via the dominant sequential double ionization channel, which is found to exhibit a phase shift as a function of the photoelectron energy. The experimental results agree with advanced ab-initio simulations.Comment: 54 pages, 11 figure

Rise and Fall of an Anti-MUC1 Specific Antibody

So far, human antibodies with good affinity and specificity for MUC1, a transmembrane protein overexpressed on breast cancers and ovarian carcinomas, and thus a promising target for therapy, were very difficult to generate.A human scFv antibody was isolated from an immune library derived from breast cancer patients immunised with MUC1. The anti-MUC1 scFv reacted with tumour cells in more than 80% of 228 tissue sections of mamma carcinoma samples, while showing very low reactivity with a large panel of non-tumour tissues. By mutagenesis and phage display, affinity of scFvs was increased up to 500fold to 5,7×10(-10) M. Half-life in serum was improved from below 1 day to more than 4 weeks and was correlated with the dimerisation tendency of the individual scFvs. The scFv bound to T47D and MCF-7 mammalian cancer cell lines were recloned into the scFv-Fc and IgG format resulting in decrease of affinity of one binder. The IgG variants with the highest affinity were tested in mouse xenograft models using MCF-7 and OVCAR tumour cells. However, the experiments showed no significant decrease in tumour growth or increase in the survival rates. To study the reasons for the failure of the xenograft experiments, ADCC was analysed in vitro using MCF-7 and OVCAR3 target cells, revealing a low ADCC, possibly due to internalisation, as detected for MCF-7 cells.Antibody phage display starting with immune libraries and followed by affinity maturation is a powerful strategy to generate high affinity human antibodies to difficult targets, in this case shown by the creation of a highly specific antibody with subnanomolar affinity to a very small epitope consisting of four amino acids. Despite these "best in class" binding parameters, the therapeutic success of this antibody was prevented by the target biology

A novel one-step approach for the construction of yeast surface display Fab antibody libraries

Abstract Background Yeast surface display (YSD) has proven to be a versatile platform technology for antibody discovery. However, the construction of antibody Fab libraries typically is a tedious three-step process that involves the generation of heavy chain as well as light chain display plasmids in different haploid yeast strains followed by yeast mating. Results Within this study, we aimed at implementing a focused Golden Gate Cloning approach for the generation of YSD libraries. For this, antibodies heavy and light chains were encoded on one single plasmid. Fab display on yeast cells was either mediated by a two-directional promoter system (2dir) or by ribosomal skipping (bicis). The general applicability of this methodology was proven by the functional display of a therapeutic antibody. Subsequently, we constructed large antibody libraries with heavy chain diversities derived from CEACAM5 immunized animals in combination with a common light chain. Target-specific antibodies from both display systems were readily obtained after three rounds of fluorescence activated cell sorting. Isolated variants exhibited high affinities in the nanomolar and subnanomolar range as well as appropriate biophysical properties. Conclusion We demonstrated that Golden Gate Cloning appears to be a valid tool for the generation of large yeast surface display antibody Fab libraries. This procedure simplifies the hit discovery process of antibodies from immune repertoires

Milking the Cow: Cattle-Derived Chimeric Ultralong CDR-H3 Antibodies and Their Engineered CDR-H3-Only Knobbody Counterparts Targeting Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Elicit Potent NK Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity

In this work, we have generated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-specific cattle-derived ultralong CDR-H3 antibodies by combining cattle immunization with yeast surface display. After immunization, ultralong CDR-H3 regions were specifically amplified and grafted onto an IGHV1-7 scaffold by homologous recombination to facilitate Fab display. Antigen-specific clones were readily obtained by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and reformatted as chimeric antibodies. Binning experiments revealed epitope targeting of domains I, II, and IV of EGFR with none of the generated binders competing with Cetuximab, Matuzumab, or EGF for binding to EGFR. Cattle-derived chimeric antibodies were potent in inducing antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) against EGFR-overexpressing tumor cells with potencies (EC50 killing) in the picomolar range. Moreover, most of the antibodies were able to significantly inhibit EGFR-mediated downstream signaling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a minor fraction of CDR-H3 knobs derived from generated antibodies was capable of independently functioning as a paratope facilitating EGFR binding when grafted onto the Fc part of human IgG1. Besides slightly to moderately diminished capacities, these engineered Knobbodies largely retained main properties of their parental antibodies such as cellular binding and triggering of ADCC. Hence, Knobbodies might emerge as promising tools for biotechnological applications upon further optimization

Generation and analysis of the improved human HAL9/10 antibody phage display libraries.

Antibody phage display is a proven key technology that allows the generation of human antibodies for diagnostics and therapy. From naive antibody gene libraries - in theory - antibodies against any target can be selected. Here we describe the design, construction and characterization of an optimized antibody phage display library

Milking the cow: cattle-derived chimeric ultralong CDR-H3 antibodies and their engineered CDR-H3-only knobbody counterparts targeting epidermal growth factor receptor elicit potent NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity

In this work, we have generated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-specific cattle-derived ultralong CDR-H3 antibodies by combining cattle immunization with yeast surface display. After immunization, ultralong CDR-H3 regions were specifically amplified and grafted onto an IGHV1-7 scaffold by homologous recombination to facilitate Fab display. Antigen-specific clones were readily obtained by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and reformatted as chimeric antibodies. Binning experiments revealed epitope targeting of domains I, II, and IV of EGFR with none of the generated binders competing with Cetuximab, Matuzumab, or EGF for binding to EGFR. Cattle-derived chimeric antibodies were potent in inducing antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) against EGFR-overexpressing tumor cells with potencies (EC50 killing) in the picomolar range. Moreover, most of the antibodies were able to significantly inhibit EGFR-mediated downstream signaling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a minor fraction of CDR-H3 knobs derived from generated antibodies was capable of independently functioning as a paratope facilitating EGFR binding when grafted onto the Fc part of human IgG1. Besides slightly to moderately diminished capacities, these engineered Knobbodies largely retained main properties of their parental antibodies such as cellular binding and triggering of ADCC. Hence, Knobbodies might emerge as promising tools for biotechnological applications upon further optimization

Generation and engineering of potent single domain antibody-based bispecific IL-18 mimetics resistant to IL-18BP decoy receptor inhibition

ABSTRACTHere, we generated bispecific antibody (bsAb) derivatives that mimic the function of interleukin (IL)-18 based on single domain antibodies (sdAbs) specific to IL-18 Rα and IL-18 Rβ. For this, camelids were immunized, followed by yeast surface display (YSD)-enabled discovery of VHHs targeting the individual receptor subunits. Upon reformatting into a strictly monovalent (1 + 1) bispecific sdAb architecture, several bsAbs triggered dose-dependent IL-18 R downstream signaling on IL-18 reporter cells, as well as IFN-γ release by peripheral blood mononuclear cells in the presence of low-dose IL-12. However, compared with IL-18, potencies and efficacies were considerably attenuated. By engineering paratope valencies and the spatial orientation of individual paratopes within the overall design architecture, we were able to generate IL-18 mimetics displaying significantly augmented functionalities, resulting in bispecific cytokine mimetics that were more potent than IL-18 in triggering proinflammatory cytokine release. Furthermore, generated IL-18 mimetics were unaffected from inhibition by IL-18 binding protein decoy receptor. Essentially, we demonstrate that this strategy enables the generation of IL-18 mimetics with tailor-made cytokine functionalities