Patent Application
20230096452
The present application relates to the technical field of antibodies, as well as to the use and preparation method of the antibody. Specifically, it relates to a claudin 18.2 antibody and use thereof.
Claudin is a class of transmembrane proteins with a molecular weight of 20 to 30 kDa. Its family has 24 members and is expressed in many tissues. It is an important molecule for the formation of intercellular tight junctions (TJ) structures. Epithelial cells or endothelial cells form a highly ordered tissue binding through tight-binding molecules (including Claudin molecules) expressed on the cell surface, namely intercellular tight junctions, which control the flow of molecules in the intercellular space of the epithelium. TJ plays a crucial role in maintaining the stable state of epithelial cells or endothelial cells under normal physiological conditions and maintaining cell polarity. Among them, the most striking is Claudin18 (CLDN18), which comprises two splicing variants: CLDN18 splice variant 1 (Claudin18.1, CLDN18.1) and CLDN18 splice variant 2 (Claudin 18.2, CLDN 18.2).
Among them, CLDN18.2 (Genbank accession numbers NM_001002026, NP_001002026) is a transmembrane protein with a molecular weight of 27.8 kDa, and both the N- and C-termini of the protein are located intracellularly. The main conformation of the protein contains 4 transmembrane domains (TMD) and 2 extracellular loops (ECL). CLDN18.2 is highly conserved in a variety of mammals, with a full length of 261 amino acids, of which amino acids 1-6 are the N-terminal intracellular domain, amino acids 7-27 are the transmembrane domain 1 (TMD1), and amino acids 28-78 are the extracellular loop 1 (ECL1), the amino acids 79-99 are the transmembrane domain 2 (TMD2), the amino acids 123-144 are the transmembrane domain 3 (TMD3), and the amino acids 100-122 are intracellular domain for connecting TMD2 and TMD3, amino acids 145-167 are the extracellular loop 2 (ECL2), amino acids 168-190 are the transmembrane domain 4 (TMD4), and amino acids 191-261 are the C-terminal intracellular region. There is a canonical N-glycosylation motif on the asparagine at position 116.
CLDN18.1 and CLDN18.2 differed only in the first 26 amino acids of the N-terminal in the N-terminal-transmembrane region 1-extracellular loop 1 of the protein, and the rest of the sequences are the same.
There is considerable evidence that the expression level of CLDN18.2 is significantly activated in tumor cells of stomach, pancreas, esophagus and other tissues, especially in adenocarcinoma subtype tumor cells. In normal tissues, CLDN18.1 is selectively expressed in lung and gastric epithelial cells; CLDN18.2 is only expressed in short-lived gastric glandular epithelial mucosal tissue (differentiated glandular epithelial cells), but not expressed in gastric epithelial stem cells, and differentiated glandular epithelial cells can be continuously replenished by gastric epithelial stem cells. These molecular expression characteristics provide potential for antibody-based treatment of CLDN18.2-related cancers.
The present application provides a CLDN18.2 antibody for treating cancer, which can effectively treat cancer lesions including gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer or esophageal cancer.
Specifically, this application relates to:
1. A CLDN18.2 antibody, comprising heavy chain CDRs and light chain CDRs,
wherein the heavy chain CDRs are:
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 18, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 19, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 20; or
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:21, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:22, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:23;
wherein the light chain CDRs are:
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:24, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:25, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:26; or
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:27, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:28, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:29.
In some embodiments, the application relates to a CLDN18.2 antibody, comprising an amino acid sequence that is at least 95%, at least 96%, at least 97%, at least 98%, or at least 99% identical to heavy chain CDRs and light chain CDRs selected from any one of the following: wherein the heavy chain CDRs are:
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 18, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 19, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 20; or
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:21, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:22, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:23;
wherein the light chain CDRs are:
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:24, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:25, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:26; or
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:27, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:28, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:29.
In some embodiments, the application relates to a CLDN18.2 antibody comprising a conservatively mutated sequence of the amino acid sequences of heavy chain CDRs and light chain CDRs selected from any one of the following,
wherein the heavy chain CDRs are:
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 18, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 19, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO: 20; or
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:21, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:22, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:23;
wherein the light chain CDRs are:
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:24, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:25, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:26; or
CDR1 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:27, CDR2 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:28, and CDR3 comprising the amino acid sequence as shown by SEQ ID NO:29.
2. The antibody of item 1, comprising a heavy chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:30, SEQ ID NO:31, SEQ ID NO:34, SEQ ID NO:36, or SEQ ID NO:40.
In some embodiments, the application relates to a CLDN18.2 antibody comprising an amino acid sequence that is at least 85%, at least 90%, at least 95%, at least 98%, at least 99% identical to:
a heavy chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:30, SEQ ID NO:31, SEQ ID NO:34, SEQ ID NO:36 or SEQ ID NO:40.
3. The antibody of item 1, comprising a light chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:32, SEQ ID NO:33, SEQ ID NO:35, SEQ ID NO:37, SEQ ID NO:41 or SEQ ID NO:42.
In some embodiments, the present application relates to a CLDN18.2 antibody comprising an amino acid sequence that is at least 85%, at least 90%, at least 95%, at least 98%, at least 99% identical to: a light chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO: 32, SEQ ID NO: 33, SEQ ID NO: 35, SEQ ID NO: 37, SEQ ID NO: 41 or SEQ ID NO: 42.
4. The antibody of any one of items 1-3, comprising a heavy chain variable region and a light chain variable region, wherein:
1) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:30 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:32; or
2) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:31 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:33.
In some embodiments, the application relates to a CLDN18.2 antibody comprising an amino acid sequence that is at least 85%, at least 90%, at least 95%, at least 98%, at least 99% identical to:
1) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:30 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:32; or
2) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:31 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:33.
5. The antibody of any one of items 1-3, comprising a heavy chain variable region and a light chain variable region, wherein:
1) the heavy chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:34 and the light chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:35;
2) the heavy chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:36 and the light chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:35;
3) the heavy chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:36 and the light chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:37;
4) the heavy chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:40 and the light chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:41; or
5) the heavy chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:40 and the light chain variable region as shown by SEQ ID NO:42.
In some embodiments, the application relates to a CLDN18.2 antibody comprising an amino acid sequence that is at least 85%, at least 90%, at least 95%, at least 98%, at least 99% identical to:
1) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:34 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:35;
2) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:36 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:35;
3) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:36 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:37;
4) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:40 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:41; or
5) the heavy chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:40 and the light chain variable region is shown by SEQ ID NO:42.
6. The antibody of any one of items 1-5, which is a chimeric antibody, a humanized antibody, or a fully human antibody.
7. The antibody of any one of items 1-6, which is a full-length antibody.
8. The antibody according to item 7, which is an IgG antibody.
9. The antibody of any one of items 1-6, which is an antibody fragment that binds to CLDN18.2.
10. The antibody of item 9, wherein the antibody fragment is Fab, Fab′-SH, Fv, scFv or (Fab′)2.
11. The antibody of any one of items 1-8, which is a multispecific antibody or a bispecific antibody.
12. The antibody of item 11, wherein the multispecific antibody or bispecific antibody comprises a binding domain that binds to a second biomolecule, and the second biomolecule is a cell surface antigen.
13. The antibody of item 12, wherein the cell surface antigen is a tumor antigen.
14. The antibody of item 13, wherein the tumor antigen is selected from the group consisting of: CD3, CD20, FcRH5, HER2, LYPD1, LY6G6D, PMEL17, LY6E, CD19, CD33, CD22, CD79A, CD79B, EDAR, GFRA1, MRP4, RET, Steap1 and TenB2.
15. An immunoconjugate, comprising a therapeutic agent, a stimulating factor for interferon gene (STING) receptor agonist, a cytokine, a radionuclide or an enzyme linked to the antibody of any one of items 1-10.
16. The conjugate of item 15, wherein the therapeutic agent is a chemotherapeutic drug.
17. The conjugate of item 15, wherein the therapeutic agent is a cytotoxic agent.
18. A fusion protein or polypeptide comprising the antibody or antigen-binding fragment of any one of items 1-10.
19. A pharmaceutical composition comprising the antibody of any one of items 1-14, the immunoconjugate of any one of items 15-17, and the fusion protein or polypeptide of item 18.
20. An isolated nucleic acid comprising a polynucleotide sequence encoding the amino acid sequence of any one of SEQ ID NOs: 18-29.
21. The nucleic acid of item 20, comprising a polynucleotide sequence encoding the amino acid sequence of any one of SEQ ID NOs: 30-33.
22. The nucleic acid of item 21, comprising a polynucleotide sequence encoding the antibody or antigen-binding fragment of any one of items 1-10.
23. A vector comprising the polynucleotide sequence of any one of items 20-22.
24. A host cell, comprising the polynucleotide sequence of any one of items 20-22 or the vector of item 23.
25. A method for preparing the antibody of any one of items 1 to 10, comprising culturing the host cell of item 24 and isolating and obtaining the antibody from the culture.
26. Use of a pharmaceutical composition in the preparation of a medicament for treating cancer, the composition comprising the antibody of any one of items 1-14, the immunoconjugate of any one of items 15-17, the fusion protein or polypeptide of item 18.
27. The use of item 26, wherein the cancer is a digestive system cancer.
28. The use of item 27, wherein the digestive system cancer is selected from any one of the following: a gastric cancer, a pancreatic cancer or an esophageal cancer.
29. A cancer detection reagent comprising the antibody of any one of items 1-10 or antigen-binding fragment thereof.
30. The cancer detection reagent of item 29, wherein the antibody or antigen-binding fragment thereof is chemically labeled.
31. The cancer detection reagent of item 30, wherein the label is an enzymatic label, a fluorescent label, an isotopic label or a chemiluminescent label.
32. A cancer diagnosis kit comprising the cancer detection reagent of any one of Items 29-31.
33. The kit of item 32, wherein the cancer is a gastric cancer, a pancreatic cancer or an esophageal cancer.
34. A method for diagnosing a cancer in a subject, comprising: contacting the antibody of any one of items 1-14, the fusion protein or polypeptide of item 18, or the detection reagent of any one of items 29-31 with a tissue sample derived from the subject.
35. The method of item 34, the tissue sample being a subject body fluid (e.g., blood, urine) and a tissue section (e.g., a tissue biopsy sample).
36. The method of item 34 or 35, wherein the cancer is selected from any one of the following: a gastric cancer, a pancreatic cancer or an esophageal cancer.
37. A method of treating cancer in a subject, comprising administering to the subject a therapeutically effective amount of the antibody of any one of items 1-14, the immunoconjugate of any one of items 15-17, the fusion protein or polypeptide of item 18, or the pharmaceutical composition of item 19.
38. The method of item 37, wherein the cancer is a digestive system cancer.
39. The method of item 38, wherein the digestive system cancer is selected from any one of the following: a gastric cancer, a pancreatic cancer or an esophageal cancer.
Specific examples of the present application will be described in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. While specific examples of the present application are shown by the drawings, it should be understood that the present application may be implemented in various forms and should not be limited by the examples set forth herein. Rather, these examples are provided so that the present application will be more thoroughly understood, and will fully convey the scope of the present application to those skilled in the art.
The term “antibody” is used herein in a broad sense to encompass various antibody structural molecules that bind to CLDN18.2 and comprise one or more of the CDR domains disclosed herein, including but not limited to monoclonal antibodies, polyclonal antibodies, polyclonal specific antibodies (e.g., bispecific antibodies) as well as antibody fragments (e.g., Fv, Fab, Fab′, Fab′-SH, F(ab′)2), linear antibodies and single chain antibody molecules (e.g., scFv) etc, as long as it exhibits the desired binding activity to CLDN18.2.
Those skilled in the art can fuse one or more CDR domains disclosed in the present application with one or more other polypeptide sequences to prepare functional fusion proteins or polypeptide molecules that bind to CLDN18.2 molecules, such as vaccines, cell membrane receptor antagonists, signaling pathway modulators, and chimeric antigen receptor molecules, etc. For example, one or more CDR domains disclosed in the present application can be used to prepare a CLDN18.2 CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Immunotherapy) molecule. These fusion protein molecules derived and prepared based on the sequence content disclosed in the present application are also comprised in the protection scope of the present application. As used herein, the modifier “monoclonal” in the term “monoclonal antibody” means that the antibody is obtained from a substantially homogeneous population of antibodies, containing only trace amounts of naturally occurring mutations or those that occur during the preparation of the monoclonal antibody mutation. In contrast to polyclonal antibody preparations, which typically comprise different antibodies directed against different epitopes, each monoclonal antibody in a monoclonal antibody preparation is directed against a single epitope on an antigen.
Monoclonal antibodies of the present application can be made by a variety of techniques including, but not limited to, hybridoma methods, recombinant DNA methods, phage display methods, and methods using transgenic animals containing all or part of the human immunoglobulin loci.
The terms “full-length antibody”, “intact antibody” refer to an antibody having a structure substantially similar to that of a native antibody, and the terms are used interchangeably herein. The “class” of an antibody refers to the type of constant domain or constant region possessed by its heavy chain. There are five major classes of antibodies: IgA, IgD, IgE, IgG, and IgM, and several of these can be further divided into subclasses (isotypes), e.g., IgGl, IgG2, IgG3, IgG4, IgA1, and IgA2. The heavy chain constant domains corresponding to the different classes of immunoglobulins are called α, δ, ε, γ, and μ, respectively.
A “chimeric antibody” is an antibody having at least a portion of a heavy chain variable region and at least a portion of a light chain variable region derived from one species and at least a portion of the constant region derived from another species. For example, in one embodiment, a chimeric antibody may comprise murine variable regions and human constant regions.
A “humanized” antibody refers to a chimeric antibody comprising amino acid residues from a non-human HVR and amino acid residues from a human FR. In certain embodiments, a humanized antibody will comprise at least one, usually two, substantially the entire variable domain, wherein all or substantially all of the HVRs (e.g., CDRs) correspond to those of the non-human antibody, and all or substantially all FRs correspond to those of a human antibody. Optionally, a humanized antibody may comprise at least a portion of an antibody constant region derived from a human antibody. A “humanized form” of an antibody (e.g., a non-human antibody) refers to an antibody that has undergone humanization.
A “human common framework” is a framework that represents the amino acid residues most frequently found in a selection of human immunoglobulin VL or VH framework sequences. Generally, human immunoglobulin VL or VH sequences are selected from a subgroup of variable domain sequences. Generally, a subgroup of sequences is a subgroup as described in Kabat et al., Sequences of Proteins of Immunological Interest, 5th edition, NIH Publication 91-3242, Bethesda Md. (1991), vols. 1-3. In one embodiment, for VH, the subgroup is subgroup III as described in Kabat et al. (supra).
A “human antibody” which may also be referred to as a “human being antibody,” “fully human-derived antibody,” or “fully human antibody,” is an antibody whose amino acid sequence corresponds to that produced by humans or by human cells. This definition of human antibody specifically excludes humanized antibodies comprising non-human antigen-binding residues. Human antibodies can be prepared using a variety of techniques known in the art, comprising phage display library techniques, as described in Hoogenboom and Winter, J. Mol. Biol., 227:381 (1991); Marks et al., J. Mol. Biol., 222:581 (1991). Cole et al., Monoclonal Antibodies and Cancer Therapy, Alan R. Liss, p. 77 (1985); Boerner et al., J. Immunol., 147(1):86-95 (1991). Human antibodies can be prepared by administering the antigen to transgenic animals (e.g., immunized xenogeneic mice) that have been modified to produce such antibodies in response to antigenic challenge, but whose endogenous loci have been disabled (for XENOMOUSE™ technology, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,075,181 and 6,150,584). For human antibodies produced via human B cell hybridoma technology, see also, e.g., Li et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 103: 3557-3562 (2006).
The term “hypervariable region” or “HVR” as used herein refers to a region of the variable domain of an antibody having a sequence of hypervariable region (also referred to as “complementarity determining region” or “CDR”) and/or forming structurally defined loops (“hypervariable loops”) and/or regions containing antigen-contacting residues (“antigen contacts”). In general, an antibody comprises 6 HVRs (CDR regions): 3 in the VH (H1, H2, and H3) and 3 in the VL (L1, L2, and L3). Exemplary HVRs (CDR regions) herein comprise:
(a) the hypervariable loop occurs at amino acid residues 26-32 (L1), 50-52 (L2), 91-96 (L3), 26-32 (H1), 53-55 (H2) and 96-101 (H3) (Chothia and Lesk, J. Mol. Biol. 196:901-917(1987));
(b) HVRs (CDR regions) occur at amino acid residues 24-34 (L1), 50-56 (L2), 89-97 (L3), 31-35b (H1), 50-65 (H2) and 95-102 (H3) (Kabat et al., Sequences of Proteins of Immunological Interest, 5th Edition, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. (1991));
(c) antigen contacts occur at amino acid residues 27c-36 (L1), 46-55 (L2), 89-96 (L3), 30-35b (H1), 47-58 (H2) and 93-101 (H3) (MacCallum et al., J. Mol. Biol. 262:732-745 (1996)); and
(d) a combination of (a), (b) and/or (c) comprising amino acid residues 46-56 (L2), 47-56 (L2), 48-56 (L2), 49-56 (L2), 26-35 (H1), 26-35b (H1), 49-65 (H2), 93-102 (H3) and 94-102 (H3) of HVR (CDR region).
Unless otherwise indicated, HVR (CDR region) residues and other residues in the variable domain (e.g., FR residues) are numbered herein according to Kabat et al. (supra).
The term “variable region” or “variable domain” refers to the antibody heavy or light chain domain involved in binding an antibody to an antigen. The variable domains of the heavy and light chains (VH and VL, respectively) of native antibodies generally have similar structures, wherein each domain comprises 4 conserved framework regions (FR) and 3 complementarity determining regions (CDR regions). (See, e.g., Kindt et al., Kuby Immunology, 6th ed.) A single VH or VL domain may be sufficient to confer antigen-binding specificity.
An “antibody fragment” refers to a molecule other than an intact antibody that comprises a portion of an intact antibody that binds the antigen to which the intact antibody binds. Examples of antibody fragments include, but are not limited to, Fv, Fab, Fab′, Fab′-SH, F(ab′)2; diabodies; linear antibodies; single-chain antibody molecules (e.g., scFv); and multispecific antibodies formed from antibody fragments.
The term “cytotoxic agent” as used herein refers to a substance that inhibits or prevents cell function and/or causes cell death or destruction. Cytotoxic agents include, but are not limited to, radioisotopes (e.g., radioisotopes of At211, I131, I125, Y90, Re186, Re188, Sm153, Bi212, P32, Pb212, and Lu); chemotherapeutic agents or drugs (e.g., methotrexate, adriamycin, vinca alkaloids (vincristine, vinblastine, etoposide), doxorubicin, melphalan, mitomycin C, chlorambucil, daunorubicin or other insertions); growth inhibitors; enzymes and fragments thereof, such as nucleolytic enzymes; antibiotics; toxins, such as small molecule toxins or enzymatically active toxins of bacterial, fungal, plant or animal origin, comprising fragments and/or variants thereof; various antitumor drugs or anticancer agents known in the art.
An “immunoconjugate” is a conjugate of an antibody with one or more heterologous molecules, including but not limited to cytotoxic agents.
A stimulator of interferon genes (STING) receptor agonist is a molecule that activates STING-dependent signaling pathways to promote the secretion of type I interferon and promote the expression of proteins related to antiviral and antitumor immunity, block viral replication, and promote the immune response to cancer cells. Such molecules are STING agonists of structural classes such as cyclic dinucleotides, aminobenzimidazoles, xanthones and acridinones, benzothiophenes and benzodioxoles.
A “subject” or “individual” is a mammal. Mammals include, but are not limited to, domesticated animals (e.g., cows, sheep, cats, dogs, and horses), primates (e.g., humans and non-human primates, such as monkeys), rabbits, and rodents (e.g., mice and rats). In certain embodiments, the subject or individual is a human.
The term “package insert” is used to refer to instructions typically comprised in commercial packages of therapeutic products that contain information regarding indications, usage, dosage, administration, combination therapy, contraindications and/or warnings regarding the use of such therapeutic products.
“Affinity” refers to the strength of the sum of non-covalent interactions between a single binding site of a molecule (e.g., an antibody) and its binding partner (e.g., an antigen). Unless otherwise indicated, as used herein, “binding affinity” refers to intrinsic binding affinity, which reflects a 1:1 interaction between members of a binding partner (e.g., antibody and antigen). The affinity of a molecule X for its partner Y can generally be represented by the dissociation constant (Kd). Affinity can be measured by common methods known in the art, comprising those described herein. Specific illustrative and exemplary embodiments for measuring binding affinity are described below.
“Amino acid sequence homology percentage” with respect to a reference polypeptide sequence is defined as the percentage of amino acid residues in a candidate sequence that are identical with the amino acid residues in the reference polypeptide sequence, after aligning the candidate sequence with the reference polypeptide sequence and introducing gaps if necessary to achieve maximum percent sequence homology and in the event that any conservative substitutions are not considered part of the sequence homology. The determination of amino acid sequence homology percentage can be accomplished in a variety of ways in the art, for example, homology alignment can be performed using software such as BLAST, BLAST-2, ALIGN or Megalign (DNASTAR). Those skilled in the art can determine suitable parameters for aligning sequences, including any algorithms needed to achieve maximal alignment over the full length of the sequences being aligned.
For example, in the case of amino acid sequence alignment using ALIGN-2, the percentage of an amino acid sequence homology to, with, or relative to a given amino acid sequence B is calculated as follows:
100×fraction X/Y
wherein X is the number of amino acid residues scored as identical matches by the sequence alignment program ALIGN-2 when the program aligns A with B, and wherein Y is the total number of amino acid residues in B. It will be appreciated that where the length of amino acid sequence A is not equal to the length of amino acid sequence B, the percentage of an amino acid sequence homology of A to B will not equal the percentage of an amino acid sequence homology of B to A. Unless otherwise indicated, all percentage values of amino acid sequence homology used herein are obtained using the ALIGN-2 computer program.
1) Antibody
The present application relates to anti-CLDN18.2 antibodies. In certain embodiments, the present application provides an anti-CLDN18.2 antibody, comprising at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 hypervariable regions (HVRs) or binding domains referred to as complementarity determining regions (CDRs) selected from any of the following: (a) HVR-H1, comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 18 or SEQ ID NO: 21, or the amino acid sequence with at least 90%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% homology to SEQ ID NO: 18 or SEQ ID NO: 21; (b) HVR-H2, comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 19 or SEQ ID NO: 22, or the amino acid sequence with at least 90%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% homology to SEQ ID NO: 19 or SEQ ID NO: 22; (c) HVR-H3, comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 20 or SEQ ID NO: 23, or the amino acid sequence with at least 90%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% homology to SEQ ID NO: 20 or SEQ ID NO: 23; (d) HVR-L1, comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 24 or SEQ ID NO: 27, or the amino acid sequence with at least 90%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% homology to SEQ ID NO: 24 or SEQ ID NO: 27; (e) HVR-L2, comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 25 or SEQ ID NO: 28, or the amino acid sequence with at least 90%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% homology to SEQ ID NO: 25 or SEQ ID NO: 28; and (f) HVR-L3, comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 26 or SEQ ID NO: 29, the amino acid sequences with at least 90%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% homology to SEQ ID NO: 26 or SEQ ID NO: 29. In some cases, the heavy chain variable (VH) domain (region) possessed by the anti-CLDN18.2 antibody may comprise the amino acid sequence with at least 90% sequence homology to SEQ ID NO: 30 or SEQ ID NO: 31 (e.g., at least 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98% or 99% sequence homology) or the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 30 or SEQ ID NO: 31, and/or the light chain variable (VL) domain (region) possessed by the anti-CLDN18.2 antibody may comprise the amino acid sequence with at least 90% sequence homology to SEQ ID NO: 32 or SEQ ID NO: 33 (e.g., at least 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98% or 99% sequence homology) or the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 32 or SEQ ID NO: 33.
In some embodiments, the anti-CLDN18.2 antibody comprises a heavy chain variable region and a light chain variable region, wherein the heavy chain variable region comprises the following amino acid sequence:
2) Antibody Fragment
In certain embodiments, the antibodies provided herein are antibody fragments. Antibody fragments include, but are not limited to, Fab, Fab′, Fab′-SH, (Fab′)2, Fv and scFv fragments and others described below. For a review of certain antibody fragments, see Hudson et al., Nat. Med. 9: 129-134 (2003). For scFv fragments, see e.g., WO 93/16185.
Bifunctional antibodies are antibody fragments with two antigen-binding sites, which can be bivalent or bispecific. See e.g., EP 404,097; WO 1993/01161. Trifunctional and tetrafunctional antibodies can be found in, e.g., Hudson et al., Nat. Med. 9: 129-134 (2003).
Single domain antibodies are antibody fragments comprising all or part of the heavy chain variable domain or all or part of the light chain variable domain of an antibody. In certain embodiments, the single domain antibody is a human single domain antibody (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,248,516 B1).
Antibody fragments can be produced by various techniques including, but not limited to, proteolytic digestion of intact antibodies and recombinant host cell (e.g., E. coli or phage) production.
3) Chimeric and Humanized Antibodies
In certain embodiments, the antibodies provided herein are chimeric antibodies. The preparation of chimeric antibodies can be found in, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,567.
In certain embodiments, the chimeric antibody is a humanized antibody. Typically, non-human antibodies are humanized to reduce immunogenicity to humans while retaining the specificity and affinity of the parental non-human antibody. In general, humanized antibodies comprise one or more variable domains, wherein all HVR (CDR) regions, or portions thereof, are derived from non-human antibodies, and FRs (or portions thereof) are derived from human antibody sequences. Humanized antibodies optionally comprise at least a portion of a human constant region. In some embodiments, some FR residues in a humanized antibody may be replaced with corresponding residues from a non-human antibody to repair or improve the affinity of the antibody.
For humanized antibodies and their production methods, refer to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,821,337, 7,527,791, 6,982,321 and 7,087,409.
4) Human Antibody
In certain embodiments, the antibodies provided herein are human antibodies. Human antibodies can be produced using various techniques known in the art.
Intact human antibodies or intact antibodies with human variable regions can be prepared by administering an immunogen to a modified transgenic animal, followed by challenge with the antigen. Such animals typically contain all or part of the human immunoglobulin loci that replace the endogenous immunoglobulin loci or are present extrachromosomally or randomly integrated into the animal's chromosomes. In such transgenic mice, the endogenous immunoglobulin loci are generally inactivated. For methods for obtaining human antibodies from transgenic animals, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,075,181 and 6,150,584 (describing XENOMOUSE™ technology); U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,770,429; 7,041,870 (describing K-M technology); and US Application Publication No. US 2007/0061900. Human variable regions derived from intact antibodies produced by such animals can be further modified, e.g., by combining them with different human constant regions.
Human antibodies can also be made by hybridoma-based methods. Human myeloma and mouse-human hybrid myeloma cell lines have been described for the production of human monoclonal antibodies, see e.g., Boerner et al., J. Immunol., 147:86 (1991). Human antibodies produced via human B cell hybridoma technology are also described in Li et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 103: 3557-3562 (2006). Other methods comprise, methods described for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,189,826 (describing production of monoclonal human IgM antibodies from hybridoma cell lines) and Ni, Xiandai Mianyixue, 26(4):265-268 (2006) (describing human-human hybridomas).
Human antibodies can also be prepared by isolating Fv clone variable domain sequences selected from phage display libraries of human origin. Such variable domain sequences can then be combined with the desired human constant domains.
Specifically, antibodies of the present application with high affinity can be isolated by screening combinatorial libraries for antibodies with binding activity to CLDN18.2. For example, various methods are known in the art for generating phage display libraries and screening such libraries for antibodies with desired binding characteristics. Such methods can be found, for example, in Hoogenboom et al., Methods in Molecular Biology 178: 1-37 (O'Brien et al., eds., Human Press, Totowa, N.J., 2001), Marks and Bradbury, Methods in Molecular Biology 248: 161-175 (Edited by Lo, Human Press, Totowa, N.J., 2003) and Lee et al., J. Immunol. Methods 284(1-2): 119-132 (2004).
In some phage display methods, the VH and VL gene lineages are individually cloned by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and randomly recombined in a phage library, followed by screening against antigen-binding phage. Phages typically present antibody fragments as single-chain Fv (scFv) fragments or Fab fragments. Patents describing human antibody phage libraries comprise, for example: U.S. Pat. No. 5,750,373 and US Patent Publication No. 2005/0079574, No. 2005/0119455, No. 2005/0266000, No. 2007/0117126, No. 2007/0237764, No. 2007/0292936 and No. 2009/0002360.
Antibodies or antibody fragments isolated from human antibody libraries are considered herein to be human antibodies or human antibody fragments.
5) Multispecific Antibody
In any of the above aspects, the anti-CLDN18.2 antibodies provided herein are multispecific antibodies, e.g., bispecific antibodies. Multispecific antibodies are monoclonal antibodies that have binding specificities for at least two different sites. In certain embodiments, one binding specificity is for CLDN18.2 and the other binding specificity is for any other antigen (e.g., a second biomolecule, e.g., a cell surface antigen, e.g., a tumor antigen). Accordingly, bispecific anti-CLDN18.2 antibodies can have binding specificity for CLDN18.2 and tumor antigens such as CD3, CD20, FcRH5, HER2, LYPD1, LY6G6D, PMEL17, LY6E, CD19, CD33, CD22, CD79A, CD79B, EDAR, GFRA1, MRP4, RET, Steap1 or TenB2. Bispecific antibodies can be prepared as full-length antibodies or antibody fragments.
Techniques for making multispecific antibodies include, but are not limited to, recombinant co-expression of two immunoglobulin heavy chain-light chain pairs with different specificities, see WO 93/08829, WO2009/08025, and WO 2009/089004A1, etc.
6) Antibody Variants
The antibodies of the present application encompass amino acid sequence variants of the anti-CLDN18.2 antibodies of the present application. For example, antibody variants prepared to further improve the binding affinity and/or other biological properties of the antibody may be desired. Amino acid sequence variants of an antibody can be prepared by introducing appropriate modifications into the nucleotide sequence encoding the antibody. Such modifications comprise, for example, deletions and/or insertions and/or substitutions of residues within the amino acid sequence of the antibody. Any combination of deletions, insertions and substitutions can be made to obtain the final construct, provided that the final construct has the desired characteristics, such as binding properties to the CLDN18.2 antigen.
In certain embodiments, antibody variants with one or more amino acid substitutions are provided. Substitution mutants (including conservative substitution mutants or non-conservative substitution mutants) can be obtained by substitution at one or more sites in the HVR (CDR) region and/or FR region.
Amino acids can be grouped according to common side chain properties:
(1) Hydrophobicity: Norleucine, Met, Ala, Val, Leu, Ile;
(2) Neutral hydrophilicity: Cys, Ser, Thr, Asn, Gln;
(3) Acidic: Asp, Glu;
(4) Alkaline: His, Lys, Arg;
(5) Residues affecting chain orientation: Gly, Pro;
(6) Aromatic: Trp, Tyr, Phe.
Conservative substitutions are defined as substitutions between the same group of amino acids, and non-conservative substitutions are defined as substitutions of amino acids from one of the different classes by amino acids from another class. Antibody variants of the present application can be obtained by introducing amino acid substitutions into the antibodies of the present application and screening the products for the desired activity (e.g., retention/improvement of antigen binding or improvement of ADCC or CDC).
The present application encompasses antibody variants obtained in accordance with the antibodies disclosed herein that contain non-conservative mutations and/or conservative mutations, so long as the variants still possess the desired CLDN18.2 binding activity.
One type of substitutional variant involves antibody variants that substitute one or more hypervariable region residues of a parent antibody (e.g., a humanized or human antibody). In general, the resulting variant selected for further study will be modified (e.g., improved) relative to the parent antibody with respect to certain biological properties (e.g., increased affinity) and/or will substantially retain certain biology nature of the parent antibody. Exemplary substitutional variants are affinity matured antibodies, which can be conveniently produced using, for example, phage display-based affinity maturation techniques such as those described herein. Briefly, one or more HVR (CDR) residues are mutated and the mutated antibody is displayed on phage, and the mutated antibody is screened for a particular biological activity (e.g., binding affinity).
In certain embodiments, substitutions, insertions or deletions may occur within one or more of the HVRs (CDRs), so long as such changes do not substantially impair the ability of the antibody to bind CLDN18.2. For example, conservative changes can be made in the HVR (CDR) that do not substantially reduce binding affinity. For example, such changes may be outside the antigen-contacting residues in the HVR, e.g., conservative or non-conservative amino acid substitutions may occur at one 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 amino acid residues of the FR region.
7) Recombination Method
Anti-CLDN18.2 antibodies of the present application can be prepared using recombinant methods, e.g., as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,567. In one embodiment, an isolated nucleic acid encoding the anti-CLDN18.2 antibody described herein is provided. Such nucleic acids may encode the VL amino acid sequence and/or the VH amino acid sequence of the antibody. In another embodiment, one or more vectors (e.g., expression vectors) comprising such nucleic acids are provided. In another embodiment, host cells comprising such nucleic acids are provided. In one such embodiment, the host cell comprises (e.g., transformed to have): (1) a vector comprising a nucleic acid encoding an amino acid sequence comprising the VL of the antibody and an amino acid sequence comprising the VH of the antibody; or (2) a first vector comprising a nucleic acid encoding an amino acid sequence comprising the VL of the antibody and a second vector comprising a nucleic acid encoding an amino acid sequence comprising the VH of the antibody. In one embodiment, the host cell is a eukaryotic cell, such as a Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell or a lymphoid cell (e.g., Y0, NSO, Sp20 cells). In one embodiment, there is provided a method of making an anti-CLDN18.2 antibody, wherein the method comprises culturing a host cell comprising a nucleic acid encoding the antibody as provided above under conditions suitable for expression of the antibody, and optionally recovering the antibody from the host cell (or host cell culture medium).
For recombinant production of anti-CLDN18.2 antibodies, nucleic acid encoding the antibody is isolated (e.g., as described above) and inserted into one or more vectors for further cloning and/or expression in host cells. Such nucleic acids can be readily isolated and sequenced using conventional procedures (e.g., by using oligonucleotide probes capable of binding specifically to the genes encoding the heavy and light chains of the antibody).
Suitable host cells for cloning or expressing antibody-encoding vectors comprise prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells as described herein. For example, antibodies can be produced in bacteria, especially when glycosylation and Fc effector functions are not required. For expression of antibody fragments and polypeptides in bacteria, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,648,237, 5,789,199, and 5,840,523. Following expression, the antibody in the soluble fraction can be isolated from the bacterial cytoplasm and can be further purified.
In addition to prokaryotes, eukaryotic microorganisms such as filamentous fungi or yeast are also suitable cloning or expression hosts for antibody-encoding vectors, including fungal and yeast strains in which the glycosylation pathway has been “humanized” to produce antibodies with partially or fully human glycosylation patterns. See Li et al., Nat. Biotech. 24: 210-215 (2006).
Host cells suitable for expression of glycosylated antibodies can also be derived from multicellular organisms (invertebrates and vertebrates). Examples of invertebrate cells comprise plant and insect cells. A number of baculovirus strains have been identified that can be used for binding to insect cells, especially for transfection of Spodoptera frugiperda cells.
Plant cell cultures can also be used as hosts. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,959,177, 6,040,498, 6,420,548, 7,125,978, and 6,417,429 (describing PLANTIBODIES™ technology for producing antibodies in transgenic plants).
Vertebrate cells can also be used as hosts. For example, mammalian cell lines suitable for growth in suspension may be suitable. Other examples of suitable mammalian host cell lines are SV40-transformed monkey kidney CV1 cell line (COS-7); human embryonic kidney cell line (e.g., 293 cells); baby hamster kidney cells (BHK); mouse Selto Cells (e.g., TM4 cells); monkey kidney cells (CV1); African green monkey kidney cells (VERO-76); human cervical carcinoma cells (HELA); Canine kidney cells (MDCK); Buffalo rat hepatocytes (BRL3A); human lung cells (W138); human hepatocytes (Hep G2); mouse breast tumors (MMT 060562); TRI cells; MRC 5 cells; Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, including DHFR-CHO cells; and myeloma cell lines, such as Y0, NSO and Sp2/0.
8) Immunoconjugate
The present application also provides immunoconjugates comprising the anti-CLDN18.2 antibody herein in combination with one or more cytotoxic agents, such as chemotherapeutic or chemotherapeutic drugs, growth inhibitors, toxins (e.g., protein toxins, enzymatically active toxins of bacterial, fungal, plant or animal origin or fragments thereof) or radioisotopes.
In one embodiment, the immunoconjugate is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), wherein the antibody is conjugated to one or more drugs, including but not limited to maytansine, orlistatin, dolastatin, methotrexate, vindesine, taxanes, trichothecene and CC1065.
In another embodiment, the immunoconjugate comprises a conjugate of the anti-CLDN18.2 antibody as described herein with an enzymatically active toxin, or a fragment thereof, including but not limited to diphtheria A chain, non-binding active fragments of diphtheria toxin, exotoxin A chain and trichothecene, etc.
In another embodiment, the immunoconjugate comprises a radioconjugate formed by combining the anti-CLDN18.2 antibody as described herein with a radioactive atom. A variety of radioisotopes are available for the production of radioconjugates. Examples comprise At211, I131, I125, Y90, Re186, Re188, Sm153, Bi212, P32, Pb212, and radioisotopes of Lu.
Conjugates of antibodies and cytotoxic agents can be made using a variety of bifunctional protein coupling agents, such as N-succinimidyl-3-(2-pyridyldithio)propionate (SPDP), succinimidyl-4-(N-maleimidomethyl)cyclohexane-1-carboxylate (SMCC), iminothiolane (IT), imidoester bifunctional derivatives (such as dimethyl adipate hydrochloride), active esters (such as disuccinimidyl suberate), aldehydes (such as glutaraldehyde), bisazido compounds (such as bis(p-azidobenzoyl)hexamethylenediamine), double nitrogen derivatives (such as bis(p-diazobenzoyl)ethylenediamine), diisocyanates (such as toluene 2,6-diisocyanate) and double reactive fluorine compounds (such as 1,5-difluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene).
9) Pharmaceutical Formulation
Pharmaceutical formulations of the anti-CLDN18.2 antibodies of the present application are prepared by mixing the antibody of the desired purity with one or more optional pharmaceutically acceptable carriers in the form of a lyophilized formulation or an aqueous solution. Pharmaceutically acceptable carriers are generally non-toxic to the recipient at the dosages and concentrations employed, and include, but are not limited to: buffers, such as phosphates, citrates, and other organic acids; antioxidants, including ascorbic acid and methylsulfide amino acids; preservatives (such as octadecyldimethylbenzyl ammonium chloride; hexahydrocarbon quaternary ammonium chloride; benzalkonium chloride; benzethonium chloride; phenol, butanol or benzyl alcohol; p-hydroxybenzoic acid alkyl esters such as methylparaben or propylparaben; catechol; resorcinol; cyclohexanol; 3-pentanol; and m-cresol); low molecular weight (less than about 10 residues) polypeptides; proteins such as serum albumin, gelatin or immunoglobulins; hydrophilic polymers such as polyvinylpyrrolidone; amino acids such as glycine, glutamic acid, asparagine, histidine, arginine or lysine; monosaccharides, disaccharides and other carbohydrates including glucose, mannose or dextrin; chelating agents such as EDTA; sugars such as sucrose, mannitol, fucose or sorbitol; salt counterions, such as sodium; metal complexes (e.g., zinc-protein complexes); and/or nonionic surfactants, such as polyethylene glycol (PEG).
Exemplary lyophilized antibody formulations are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,958. Aqueous antibody formulations comprise those described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,171,586 and WO2006/044908.
The formulations herein may also contain more than one active ingredient as necessary for the particular indication being treated, preferably active ingredients having complementary activities that do not adversely affect each other. For example, it may be desirable to further provide additional therapeutic agents (e.g., chemotherapeutic agents, cytotoxic agents, growth inhibitors and/or antihormonal agents). Such active ingredients are suitably present in combination in amounts effective for the intended purpose.
10) Article of Manufacture
In another aspect of the present application, an article of manufacture containing the antibody or pharmaceutical composition of the present application is provided. The article of manufacture comprises a container and a label or package insert on or associated with the container. Suitable containers comprise, for example, bottles, vials, syringes, IV solution bags, and the like. Such containers may be formed from various materials, such as glass or plastic. The container holds the composition of the present application alone or in combination with another composition, and may have a sterile access port (e.g., the container may be an intravenous solution bag or a vial with a stopper pierceable by a hypodermic needle). At least one active agent in the composition is the antibody of the present application. The label or package insert indicates that the composition is used to treat the selected tumor. In addition, the article of manufacture may comprise (a) a first container containing a composition therein, wherein the composition comprises the antibody of the present application; and (b) a second container containing a composition therein, wherein the composition comprises another tumor treatment drug or another antibody. The article of manufacture in this embodiment of the present application may further comprise a package insert indicating that such compositions can be used to treat tumors. Alternatively, or in addition, the article of manufacture may further comprise a second (or third) container comprising a pharmaceutically acceptable buffer, such as bacteriostatic water for injection (BWFI), phosphate buffered saline, Ringer's solution and dextrose solution. It may further comprise other materials as may be desirable from a commercial and user standpoint, including other buffers, diluents, filters, needles and syringes.
(1) Construction of Human hCLDN18.2-TCE (T Cell Epitope Peptide) Retrovirus Expression Plasmid
The hCLDN18.2 cDNA (SEQ ID NO: 1) was cloned and C-terminally fused with a T-cell epitope peptide, resulting in hCLDN18.2-TCE. T-cell epitope peptides can make antigens break through immune tolerance and promote antibody production (Percival-Alwyn J. et al., mAbs, 2015, 7(1), 129-137). The hCLDN18.2-TCE was cloned into a retroviral vector to obtain the hCLDN18.2-TCE retroviral expression plasmid. The hCLDN18.2-TCE retrovirus expression plasmid was transiently transfected into HEK293-T cells, and the expression of hCLDN18.2 on the surface of HEK293-T cells was analyzed by flow cytometry 72 hours after transfection. The primary antibody (1st Ab) was the self-made positive control (Benchmarker) chimeric antibody 163E12. Cells were first incubated with the primary antibody (1 μg/mL) at 4° C. for 45 minutes, washed with PBS, and then incubated with Alexa Fluor 488-labeled goat anti-human IgG secondary antibody (ThermoFisher, Cat. No. A-11013) (2nd Ab, diluted 1:200) at 4° C. for 45 minutes. Flow cytometry (FACS) analysis was performed after washing twice with PBS, and the negative control cells were incubated with secondary antibody only. The results were shown in
(2) Mouse Tumor Cells Expressing High Levels of hCLDN18.2-TCE
The hCLDN18.2-TCE retrovirus expression plasmid was mixed with the lentiviral packaging plasmid and transfected into 293-T cells to prepare hCLDN18.2-TCE lentiviral particles. The hCLDN18.2-TCE lentiviral particles were transfected into mouse tumor cell lines, and 72 hours later, the pool of mouse tumor cells with high expression of hCLDN18.2 was detected and sorted by flow cytometry. The primary antibody (1st Ab) was the self-made positive control (Benchmarker) chimeric antibody 163E12. Cells were first incubated with primary antibody (1 μg/mL) at 4° C. for 45 minutes, washed with PBS and then incubated with Alexa Fluor 488-labeled goat anti-human Fc secondary antibody (2nd Ab, 1:200 dilution) at 4° C. for 45 minutes. Flow cytometry (FACS) analysis was performed after washing twice with PBS, and the negative control cells were incubated with secondary antibody only. The results were shown in
(3) Preparation of hCLDN18.2 Extracellular Loop Class 1 Virus Particles
According to the method published by Thorsten K. (Thorsten K., et al, Cancer Res, 2011, 71(2), 515-527), inserting the Extra Cellular Loop1 (ECL1) (SEQ ID NO: 2) of hCLDN18.2 to the major immunodominant region (MIR) of Hepatitis B virus core antigen (HBcAg) and the G4SG4 linker were introduced at the N-terminal and C-terminal of ECL1 respectively, and a 6×His tag (SEQ ID NO: 3) was added to the C-terminal of the full-length fusion protein. The full-length gene of the fusion protein was synthesized, cloned into pET24a(+) plasmid, and transfected into BL21(DE3) E. coli expression system for fusion protein expression. After purification of the fusion protein, virus-like particles of HBV hCLDN18.2 extracellular loop 1 were prepared in renaturation buffer. The preparation of this virus-like particles of HBV hCLDN18.2 extracellular loop 1 would be used in the (3) virus-like particle multiple-point repeat immunization-cellular immunization protocol and (4) virus-like particle tarsus joint immunization-cell immunization protocol in Example 2.
(4) Construction of CLDN18 Stably Transfected Cell Line
The full-length genes of hCLDN18.2 (SEQ ID NO: 4), hCLDN18.1 (SEQ ID NO: 5), mouse m hCLDN18.2 (SEQ ID NO: 6), and mCLDN18.1 (SEQ ID NO: 7) were synthesized respectively, and cloned into pcDNA3.4 vector plasmid respectively. Plasmids were transfected into HEK293 cells and neomycin (G418) was added for pressure selection. The HEK293 stably transfected cell lines with high expression of hCLDN18.2, hCLDN18.1, m hCLDN18.2 and mCLDN18.1 were selected by limiting dilution method. The results of flow cytometry showed that the HEK293 stably transfected cell lines transfected with hCLDN18.2 and mCLDN18.2 (HEK293-hCLDN18.2, HEK293-mCLDN18.2), both paraformaldehyde-fixed and non-fixed cells could be specifically recognized by self-made anti-CLDN18.2 positive control antibody 163E12 or 175D10 (
(5) Preparation of Positive Control Antibodies 43A11, 175D10 and 163E12
Human-mouse chimeric positive control antibodies 43A11 heavy chain (SEQ ID NO:8) and light chain (SEQ ID NO:9), 175D10 heavy chain (SEQ ID NO:10) and light chain (SEQ ID NO:11) and 163E12 heavy chain (SEQ ID NO: 12) and light chain (SEQ ID NO: 13) antibody gene full-length were synthesized, respectively, and respectively added a signal peptide at the N-terminus, and then cloned into pcDNA3.4 eukaryotic expression vector. The 43A11, 175D10 and 163E12 heavy chain and light chain expression plasmids were mixed and co-transfected into CHOS cells for transient protein expression, and the supernatant was collected for affinity purification with Protein A and SDS-PAGE detection. The results were shown in
A total of 4 immunization protocols were used (Table 1), and at least two different strains of mice were used for each immunization protocol (Table 2). In each immunization protocol, some individual mice show higher levels of serum immune titers. Mice individuals with high levels of immune titers in each immunization protocol were sacrificed and their spleens were removed. B lymphocytes were isolated and mixed, and then electrofused with mouse myeloma cell lines to prepare hybridomas. A total of three batches of hybridoma preparation were performed (Table 2).
The hybridomas from three batches were cloned and cultured by the limiting dilution method, and the cloned supernatant was taken for three rounds of binding or reverse binding screening, antibody typing and antibody-dependent cytotoxicity assay by flow cytometry. A hybridoma clone that could specifically and strongly bound to CLDN18.2 but not or weakly bound to CLDN18.1, and had antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) function were selected. The screening steps and the hybridoma clones obtained by screening at each stage were summarized in Table 3.
1) Primary screening: Flow cytometry was used to analyze the binding of the supernatant expression product of each clone to a mouse tumor cell line expressing high levels of CLDN18.2-TCE (UBER CLDN18.2 TCE). The fused hybridomas were inoculated into 384-well plates by the limiting dilution method, and the supernatant was collected after ten days of culture to screen positive hybridoma clones by flow cytometry. After co-incubating the supernatant with UBER CLDN18.2 TCE cells (20,000 cells/well) at 4° C. for 45 minutes, the plate was washed and flown with Alexa Fluor-488-goat anti-mouse IgG (ThermoFisher Cat. No. A28175) as the secondary antibody for cytometry detection, clones with an average fluorescence intensity above 100,000 were screened for amplification, and saturated supernatants were collected for confirmation screening.
3 Batches of hybridomas were cloned by limiting dilution in 10 of 384-well plates per batch. After primary screening, 341 (MFI>100,000), 336 (MFI>75,000 or MFI>80,000) and 89 (MFI>90,000) hybridoma clones that positively bound to the mouse tumor cell line of CLDN18.2-TCE were obtained from three batches of hybridomas.
2) Confirmation screening: the supernatant expression products of the primary screened positive clones in the previous step were incubated with HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells, HEK293-hCLDN18.1 cells and HEK293 wild-type cells respectively (20,000 cells/well, 4° C., 45 minutes), Alexa Fluor-488-goat anti-mouse IgG (ThermoFisher, Cat. No. A28175) was used as the secondary antibody to screen for clones positive binding to HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells, but negative binding to HEK293-hCLDN18.1 cells and HEK293 wild type cells by flow cytometry for amplification, were and saturated supernatants were collected for validation screening.
After confirmation screening, three batches of hybridomas obtain 165 (HEK293-hCLDN18.2 MFI>200,000, HEK293-hCLDN18.1 MFI<100,000), 120 (HEK293-hCLDN18.2 MFI>50,000, HEK293-hCLDN18.1 MFI<40,000) and 21 (HEK293-hCLDN18.2 MFI>70,000, HEK293-hCLDN18.1 MFI<30,000) clones that could specifically and strongly bound to HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells, but weakly bound to HEK293-hCLDN18.1 cells, and did not bind to HEK293 wild-type cells. FACS analysis of some positive clones was shown in
3) Verification screening: The supernatant expression products of 306 (165+120+21) positive hybridomas obtained in the confirmation screening of three batches of hybridomas were incubated with HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells and HEK293-hCLDN18.1 cells, HEK293-mCLDN18.2 cells, HEK293-mCLDN18.1 cells, and HEK293 wild-type cells were (20,000 cells/well, 4° C., 45 minutes), and Alexa Fluor-488-goat anti-mouse IgG (ThermoFisher, Cat. No. A28175) was used as a secondary antibody for analysis by flow cytometry. The flow cytometry analysis results of some clones on the 5 cell lines were shown in
4) Antibody typing: Because different subtypes of IgG molecules also had different abilities to mediate ADCC effects. Supernatant antibody expression products of 306 (165+120+21) positive hybridomas obtained in the confirmation screening of three batches of hybridomas were subjected to mouse antibody subtyping using a mouse antibody subtype detection kit before the antibody-dependent cell killing assay were. Most of the subtypes of the 306 clones belonged to mouse IgG2a, IgG2b or IgG3 with ADCC function, and only a few (26/306) were IgG1 subtypes without ADCC function (corresponding to human antibody IgG4 subtype). Some clones were mixed subtypes, possibly because the hybridoma clones were not monoclonal. The light chains were all mouse κ subtypes.
5) ADCC effect assay
Taking into account the results of the aforementioned confirmation screening, verification screening and antibody typing, the saturated supernatants of 128 positive clones were selected for antibody-dependent cytotoxicity function detection. The effector cells were human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), which were derived from two donors (NOs. 45 and 46). Blood was drawn from the donors the day before the experiment. The collected blood was stored at room temperature, and the PBMCs were freshly isolated through a Ficoll gradient. The target cells were HEK293 cells expressing CLDN18.2 (HEK293-hCLDN18.2). The hybridoma expression products were uniformly diluted 4-fold. Freshly obtained PBMCs cells and target cells were incubated with each sample for 4 hours at an effect-to-target ratio of 25:1. Antibody ADCC effects were characterized by measuring lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) associated with cytotoxicity. The absorbance value detected when the target cells were lysed spontaneously was defined as 0%, and the absorbance value detected when the target cells were completely lysed was defined as 100%, and the ADCC effect was characterized by the relative percentage activity of each test sample. The ADCC effect results of some clones were shown in
The cryopreserved positive hybridoma clones were recovered and subcloned. Each positive hybridoma clone was subcloned by limiting dilution. Microscopically, single clones were selected for amplification and culture, and then the supernatants were collected and analyzed by flow cytometry to detect the specific binding of subclonal supernatants to HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells. After co-incubating the supernatant with HEK293-CLDN18.2 cells (20,000 cells/well) at 4° C. for 45 minutes, the plate was washed with Alexa Fluor-488-goat anti-mouse IgG (ThermoFisher, Cat. No. A28175) as the secondary antibody for flow cytometry detection. To ensure the success rate of subsequent sequencing, 2 single clones (clone A and clone B) were selected for each hybridoma for amplification and cryopreserved. The flow cytometry analysis of HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells by the subcloned positive monoclonal supernatants was shown in
The DNA sequences of the VH and VL of the hybridoma monoclonal were amplified using the RACE (rapid amplification of cDNA ends) method. RNA was extracted from amplified hybridoma monoclonal cells, reverse transcribed into cDNA and the heavy chain or light chain V region was subjected to PCR by a 5′-RACE reaction using a combination of 5′-universal primers and 3′-H, L(κ) or L(λ) FR1 region degenerate primer, and the positive amplified band was confirmed by agarose gel electrophoresis. The results were shown by
The V regions of the heavy chain and light chain of the candidate mouse antibody were fused to the constant region (HC) region of the human IgG1 type heavy chain (G1m17) and the constant region (LC) of the human kappa type light chain, respectively, and human-mouse chimeric heavy chain full-length gene and light chain full-length gene were synthesized and cloned into expression vector, and sequenced for verification. The constructed expression plasmid of each candidate molecule was amplified and extracted, verified by agarose gel electrophoresis, and used as a transfection material.
HEK293 cells (Tuna293TM) were inoculated into shake flasks for suspension seed culture using serum-free and chemically defined media. One day before transfection, the amplified HEK293 cells were inoculated into new shake flasks and replaced with fresh medium. The heavy chain and light chain expression plasmids of each candidate mouse chimeric antibody molecule were co-transfected into HEK293 cells, and fed-batch culture was performed until the cell viability decreased, and the supernatant was collected for product purification.
First, most of the cell debris and insoluble particles were removed by centrifugation and filtration of the supernatant, and then the feed solution was loaded onto the Protein A column, where the antibody molecules bound to Protein A on the filler, and most impurities were removed after an equilibration step. A low pH eluent was used to elute the antibody protein and the fractions were collected. pH was adjusted and exchanged to formulation buffer by ultrafiltration. Finally, the OD280 was determined to calculate the protein concentration. The purified antibody protein was tested for purity by reducing capillary electrophoresis sodium dodecyl sulfate (CE-SDS). The reducing CE-SDS detection showed that the purity of 20 human-mouse chimeric monoclonal antibody molecules was >95% (Table 6). The reducing CE-SDS of some antibody proteins was shown in
After deglycosylation of purified monoclonal antibodies using deglycosylase (PNGase F) and reduction of light and heavy chains with dithiothreitol (DTT), molecular weight determination was performed by reverse chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (RP-UPLC/MS). The liquid phase part used Waters ACQUITY UPLC H-Class system, mobile phase A was 0.1% formic acid (FA)/water, mobile phase B was 0.1% FA/acetonitrile (ACN), chromatographic column was Waters ACQUITY UPLC Protein BEH C4, mass spectrometry was a Waters Xevo G2-XS Qtof, equipped with an electrospray ionization (ESI) ion source, and the scan mode was Resolution. The collected raw mass spectrometry data of the multiple-charged valence states of the target peak compounds were denoised, smoothed and deconvoluted by MassLynx software, the total ion chromatograms and deconvolution spectra of light and heavy chains of some monoclonal antibodies were shown by
In this example, the affinity of 20 purified human-mouse chimeric monoclonal antibodies to cell surface CLDN18.2 was determined by flow cytometry. The determination method for cell surface protein affinity refers to the direct FACS binding method described in Hunter S. A. et al, Methods in Enzymology, 2016, 580, 21-44. After resuscitation of HEK293 cells (HEK293-hCLDN18.2) stably expressing CLDN18.2, they were cultured and passaged until a certain number of cells were reached. The cells were distributed to 1 mL centrifuge tubes at a density of 5×104/mL, and centrifuged for use. A series of antibody concentrations were prepared for each monoclonal antibody (10 μg/mL, 3.3 μg/mL, 1.1 μg/mL, 0.37 μg/mL, 0.1123 μg/mL, 0.0041 μg/mL, 0.0013 μg/mL). To eliminate ligand depletion effects (Ligand Depletion), antibody concentration series were prepared using PBS binding buffer diluted to the corresponding ligand depletion volume. HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells were mixed and incubated with serial concentrations of antibodies formulated to the ligand elimination volume, and incubated at 4° C. until equilibrium. The cells were collected by centrifugation at 4° C., washed with pre-cooled PBS, incubated with the anti-human IgG secondary antibody with fluorescent dye for 30 minutes at 4° C., washed once with pre-cooled PBS, and then subjected to FACS binding analysis, and nonlinear curve regression was performed according to the results to calculate binding kinetic constant (KD) values. The results were shown in Table 7, showing that the affinities (KD) of all antibodies were at the subnanomolar level. Some antibodies had lower affinity than positive control antibodies (also known as Benchmark, BM) 163E12 (the amino acid sequence of the heavy chain was SEQ ID NO: 12; the amino acid sequence of the light chain was SEQ ID NO: 13) and 175D10 (the amino acid sequence of the heavy chain was SEQ ID NO: 10; the amino acid sequence of the light chain was SEQ ID NO: 11) by 3 to 5 times, reaching a nearly picomolar affinity.
In this example, the ADCC function of the purified human-mouse chimeric monoclonal antibody was assayed by the effector cell reporter gene method. The effector cells in this method are the Jurkat cell line (Promega, G7018) stably expressing human Fc receptor (FcγRIIIa V158) and NFAT (nuclear factor for activated T cells) in response to inducible expression of luciferase (NFAT-RE-Luc). When the effector cell binds to the Fc region of the relevant test antibody bound to the target cell, it activates the FcγRIIIa receptor on the responding cell, further activates the intracellular NFAT cell signaling pathway, and mediates the expression of NFAT corresponding luciferase. The ADCC effect was determined by quantifying this fluorescent activity.
The antibody concentration was serially diluted 5 times starting from 2 μg/mL to obtain 8 concentrations (respectively 2000 ng/mL, 400 ng/mL, 80 ng/mL, 16 ng/mL, 3.2 ng/mL, 0.64 ng/mL, 0.128 ng/mL, 0.0256 ng/mL) of serially diluted antibody samples. The antibody sample was mixed with target cells stably expressing human CLDN18.2 (HEK293-hCLDN18.2), and then effector cells were added. The effector-target ratio of effector cells to target cells was 5:1 (75000:15000). The reaction system was incubated at 37° C. for 6 hours, fluorescein substrate was added and the fluorescence intensity (RLU) was read. The induction fold of the ordinate was calculated by the following formula:
Induction fold=(induced fluorescence intensity-background fluorescence intensity)/(no antibody control fluorescence intensity−background fluorescence intensity).
The ADCC effect results of 20 purified human-mouse chimeric monoclonal antibodies were shown in
In this example, immunohistochemical methods were used to detect the binding of 20 hybridoma antibodies to normal gastric tissue and gastric cancer tissue on a frozen tissue chip. First, the concentration of mouse IgG antibody in the supernatant of 20 hybridomas was quantified by the Elisa method, and then the supernatant of hybridoma was diluted according to the quantification results of mouse IgG in the supernatant of hybridoma, and the IHC of the hybridoma supernatant on gastric mucosal epithelial glands was verified on the frozen section of normal gastric tissue, and the IHC study of 20 hybridoma supernatants on human normal gastric tissue and gastric cancer tissue frozen chip (Tissue Micro Array, TMA) (BioMax, FST401) was carried out using the verified IHC conditions. The frozen tissue chip was incubated with the supernatant of each hybridoma of the verified concentration at 37° C., then washed with PBS buffer three times, and then incubated with HRP-labeled anti-mouse IgG secondary antibody at 37° C., using the diaminobenzidine (DAB) method to develop color. Table 9 summarizes the IHC results of the supernatants of 20 hybridoma clones on frozen TMA containing 16 gastric cancer tissues and 4 normal gastric tissues. Among them, the positive staining rates of 5-M9, 3-N12, 3-L4, 9-D1 and 4-B23 in gastric cancer tissue were all higher than 67%, but in the staining of normal gastric tissue epithelial cells, the positive staining rate of 9-D1 was only 25%, which was significantly lower than that of the other 4 clones (>50%), which indicated that the 9-D1 antibody had higher positive staining on gastric tumor tissue, and at the same time, it bound weakly to normal gastric mucosal epithelium. This meant that 9-D1 as a therapeutic antibody would have lower toxicity (on target off tumor toxicity) in normal tissues expressed on extra-tumor targets, which suggested that 9-D1 antibody may had a strong advantage in druggability. Screening antibodies that had strong binding to targets in tumor tissues and weak binding to targets in normal tissues was a new trend in screening therapeutic antibodies in recent years. Because of the special physiological environment of tumor tissue, the molecular structure of many targets on tumor cells was different from that of targets that maintain normal functions in normal tissues, and screening of tumor target-specific antibodies could specifically recognize this difference (Garrett T. P. J. et al, PNAS, 2009, 106(13), 5082-5087). Examples of IHC staining of 3-L4 and 4-I17 on some gastric cancer chip tissues were shown in
It was worth noting that when 4-B23 was subjected to IHC condition exploration on normal gastric frozen tissue sections, a very obvious non-specific strong IHC staining was found, and the non-specific staining mainly concentrated on smooth muscle on gastric tissue.
The IHC staining results of the monoclonal supernatants of 5 hybridomas (4-B23, 3-N12, 5-M9, 8-O11 and 3-L4) on normal human heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney frozen tissues were summarized as follows shown in Table 10. Among them, the positive control antibodies (163E12), 3-N12, 5-M9, 8-O11 and 3-L4 were negative for IHC staining on the frozen tissues of normal human heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney, and for 4-B23, strong positive staining appeared on the above-mentioned tissues of all vital organs.
Sequence humanization of antibodies 5-M9 and 9-D1 was performed in a manner based on antibody 3D modeling (Kurella et al, Methods Mol. Biol., 2018, 1827, 3-14), and the design process was performed using commercial Schrodinger's Bioluminate software. Firstly, the homology modeling of the heavy chain V region and the light chain V region of the antibody was performed, and the VH and VL structures with the highest sequence homology were selected as templates by sequence alignment with the existing antibody sequences in the PDB (Protein Data Bank) database. The VH and VL of the antibody to be modeled were separately modeled in 3D. The 3D modeled VH and VL framework regions were then analyzed and assigned important amino acid residues of CDR regions, Canonical folds, Vernier regions and VH/VL binding region (interface). By aligning the VH and VL of the antibody to be humanized with the germline genes of the human antibody, the human germline gene with the highest degree of homology was found as the template for humanization, and then the CDR of the antibody to be humanized was transplanted into the corresponding human germline gene framework region. Three basic principles were used to determine whether to restore the important amino acids in the CDR-transplanted human framework region: 1) if the amino acid residues in the human framework region on the 3D structure produced new contact sites (ionic bonds, hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions) to the CDR region, canonical fold, Vernier region and VH/VL binding region (interface), and the corresponding human amino acid residues in the framework region were mutated to the corresponding residues in the mouse framework region; 2) if the original mouse-derived framework region and CDR region, canonical fold, Vernier region and VH/VL binding region (interface) on the 3D structure had the amino acid residues of the original contact site (ionic bond, hydrogen bond and hydrophobic interaction), after replacing with the amino acid residues of the corresponding human framework region, the contact site was weakened or disappeared, and the corresponding human-derived amino acids residues in the framework region were re-mutated to those corresponding to mouse-derived framework regions; 3) replacing the amino acid residues of the typical mouse-derived Canonical fold, Vernier region and VH/VL binding region (interface) with human-derived amino acid residues require careful study and careful substitution.
For the humanized antibody predicted by the above principles, based on the 3D structure, Schrodinger software further conducted 1) protein surface analysis, and annotated the amino acids that formed a larger hydrophobic exposed area relative to the surface of the mouse-derived antibody after humanization. If humanized antibodies formed more aggregates in subsequent preparation and characterization, the amino acid residues with larger hydrophobic exposed regions were modified to destroy the corresponding surface hydrophobic regions; 2) analysis of amino acid post-translational modifications, for the amino acid side chains that were prone to post-translational modifications after humanization, the amino acid residues with >50% exposure on the surface of the 3D structure were annotated. If the humanized antibody had post-translational modifications in the subsequent preparation and characterization, the high-risk post-translational modification amino acid residues with surface exposure were modified; 3) the immunogenicity analysis of the antibody sequence comprised T cell epitope analysis, B cell epitope analysis, and MHC II epitope analysis, and the positions of peptides with high immunogenicity for producing Anti-Drug-Antibody (ADA) were annotated.
3-4 humanized sequences were provided for VH and VL of each antibody sequence, respectively. Table 11 lists the degree of humanization of the mouse-derived sequences of VH and VL and the corresponding humanized sequences, and the degree of humanization of VH was increased from about 60% of the mouse-derived sequences to a maximum of about 80%, and the degree of humanization of VL was increased from about 80% of the mouse-derived sequences to a maximum of about 90%. Full-length gene synthesis was performed for the humanized heavy chain and light chain, and the heavy chain and light chain constant regions were human IgG1 (G1m17) heavy chain and human κ type light chain, respectively. The full-length gene was cloned into an expression plasmid, and the heavy chain and light chain expression plasmids were permutated, combined and co-transfected with HEK293 for antibody expression. Table 12 showed the expression of humanized molecules according to the permutation and combination of VH/VL humanized sequences, showing that 5-M9 expresses a total of 12 humanized molecules, and 9-D1 expresses a total of 9 humanized molecules.
In this example, flow cytometry was used to determine the binding activity of 5-M9 and 9-D1 humanized antibodies to hCLDN18.2 on the cell surface. The well-grown HEK293-hCLDN18.2 stably transfected cell line and the hCLDN18.2 low-expressing KATOIII human gastric cancer cell line sorted and enriched by flow cytometry were digested with trypsin, and resuspended to adjust the cell concentration to 1.5×106˜2×106/mL, added to a 96-well U-plate at 100 μL/well (150,000 to 200,000 cells/well). Washing once with PBS buffer containing 1% fetal bovine serum (FBS). The antibody solution (100 μL/well) with the test concentration prepared in PBS (+1% FBS) was added, mixed with the cells, and incubated at 4° C. for 1 hour. Cells were centrifuged at 200 g and washed once with PBS (+1% FBS). Cy3-Conjugated AffiniPure goat anti-human IgG secondary antibody (Jackson labs, Cat. No. 109-165-003) diluted 1000 times in PBS (+1% FBS) or Alexa Fluor488-conjugated goat anti-human IgG (H+L) secondary antibody (Thermofisher, Cat. No. A-11013) was added at 100 μL/well, mixed with cells and incubated at 4° C. for 45 minutes. Cells were centrifuged at 200 g and washed twice with PBS (+1% FBS), then resuspended in 100 μL of PBS (+1% FBS) for flow cytometric analysis. In the preliminary FACS binding analysis of 12 humanized molecules of 5-M9, the antibody expression supernatant of HEK293 cells was used, and the antibody concentration in the supernatant was quantified by Problife and corrected by ELISA. In the study of the effect of heat treatment on the binding properties of antibodies, the antibody to be tested was heat-treated at 70° C. for 5 minutes on a PCR machine, and then incubated with cells for binding.
In a study to evaluate the non-specificity of humanized antibodies to polysaccharides, lipids and proteins, the ELISA method was used to detect the effect of antibodies on the binding ability of insect baculovirus (BV) (Hotzel et al, mAbs, 2012, 4 (6), 753-760). Insect virus envelopes contained many lipids, polysaccharides and proteins, and had biochemical mixture characteristics similar to those of human cells and tissues. The binding ability of antibodies to insect baculoviruses could evaluate the risk of non-specific binding of antibodies in vivo to a certain extent. Insect baculovirus was obtained by infecting insect cells with baculovirus plasmid. Insect baculovirus was diluted 1:500 with PBS, and was coated on a 96-well plate overnight at 4° C. at 50 μL/well. The plate was washed three times with PBS (300 μL/well), blocked with 1% BSA (200 μL/well) for 1 hour at room temperature, and the plate was washed three times with PBS. Antibodies at different concentrations (100 μL/well) were added and incubated at room temperature for 1 hour. The plate was washed 6 times with PBS (300 μL/well). 1:5000 diluted HRP-conjugated goat anti-human secondary antibody (100 μL/well) was added. After incubation at room temperature for 1 hour, the plate was washed 6 times with PBS (300 μL/well). H2O2-Amplx (100 μL/well) was added and the value was read at room temperature in the dark.
Table 13 showed the binding characteristics of 5-M9 humanized antibody expression supernatant to HEK293-hCLDN18.2 after non-heat treatment/heat treatment, in which h5M9V7, h5M9V10 and h5M9V12 had high binding activities in all 12 humanized molecules, and the stable binding characteristics were still maintained after the antibody was heat-treated at 70° C. for 5 minutes.
The amino acid sequences of the heavy chain constant region and light chain constant region of h5M9V7, h5M9V10 and h5M9V12 were shown below:
The binding characteristics of purified antibodies of 5-M9 chimeric antibody (Chi 5-M9), h5M9V7, h5M9V10 and h5M9V12 (also known as: h5M9-V7, h5M9-V10 and h5M9-V12, respectively) to HEK293-hCLDN18.2 after non-heat/heat treatment were shown in
The binding properties of the tested antibody on the hCLDN18.2 low-expressing cell line were valuable for evaluating the clinical application of the antibody, because the expression level of CLDN18.2 in gastric tumors of patients was not uniform in clinical practice, and nearly ⅓ was low-level expression, and a single tumor expression was heterogeneous (Zhu G. et al, Sci Rep, 2019, 9, 8420-8431).
In this example, various methods were used to analyze the physicochemical properties of 5-M9 and 9-D1 and their humanized antibody molecules for their thermal stability, aggregate formation and purity.
Antibody thermal stability analysis: Differential scanning fluorescence (DSF) and static light scanning (SLS) were analyzed on Uncle system (UNCCHAINED LABS), the temperature detection range of DSF and SLS was from 20° C. to 95° C., the heating rate was 1° C./minutes, the static light scattering at wavelengths 266 nm and 473 nm was detected, and the melting temperature (Tm) and thermal aggregation (Tagg) were analyzed by Uncle system software. Differential scanning calorimetry (DLC) detection instrument was Malvern MicroCal VP-Capillary DSC. The variable temperature range was from 25° C. to 100° C., and the scanning speed was 1° C./minutes. Scanning with test sample buffer as a blank solution. Raw data were processed by MicroCal VP-Capillary DSC Automated Analysis software.
Antibody aggregate analysis: dynamic light scattering (DLS) was performed on Uncle system, the test temperature was 25° C., and analysis was performed by Uncle system software. Size-Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) detection instrument was Waters Alliance e2695 system equipped with PDA detector. The column was TOSOH TSKgel G3000SWXL, Cat. No. 0008541. The mobile phase was 0.1M phosphate buffer, 0.1M sodium chloride, pH 6.8. Flow rate was 1.0 mL/minutes, isocratic elution. The column temperature was 25° C., the detection wavelength was 280 nm, and the injection volume was 100 μg.
IgG antibodies had multiple protein domains, each of which had a unique melting temperature (Tm). The heavy chain constant region 2 (CH2) generally had a Tm of about 70° C. in PBS solution, and the heavy chain constant region 3 (CH3) was relatively stable with a Tm of about 80° C. Antibody Fabs region had a wide range of Tm about 50° C. to 85° C. due to the large sequence differences. However, the Tm of each domain was transitional, and sometimes the domains might not be separated because the Tm values of the domains were close. Table 14 showed the thermal stability analysis results of 5-M9 and its humanized antibodies. Each antibody has 2 or 3 Tm, wherein Tm1 was about 70° C., which should be the Tm of the CH2 domain; Tm2 or Tm3 was the Tm of CH3 or Fab domain; generally h5M9V7 had a higher Tm value (
The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) detection patterns of the 9-D1 antibody and its humanized antibody were shown in
The aggregate analysis of the 5-M9 humanized antibody adopted the dynamic light scattering (DLS) method, and the DLS data was summarized in Table 16. The particle radius of each antibody molecule at 25° C. was about 9.5 nm (peak 1), which conformed to the radius range of antibody monomer, was IgG monomer molecule, and the content % was about 100%. The polydispersity index (PDI) reflects the dispersity of the particles, and PDI<0.25 can be considered as a single homogeneous particle. PDI for both h5M9V7 and h5M9V12 were less than 0.25 and significantly smaller than Chi 5-M9 and h5M9V10, indicating that they had good monomer dispersion and were not easy to form aggregate.
The aggregate of 9-D1 humanized antibody were analyzed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The SEC detection pattern was shown in
In this example, purified 9D1 and 5M9 humanized antibodies were used, and the antibodies were directly conjugated with poly-HRP-polymer (WO2015171938), and then immunohistochemistry was used to detect humanized antibodies staining on frozen sections of 16 gastric cancer tissues and 5 normal human major organ (heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney, 3 for each tissue) tissues. Poly-HRP-polymer-conjugated hIgG isotype Antibody (ThermoFisher, Cat. No. 12000C) was used as the negative control, and Poly-H1RP-polymer-conjugated 175D10 antibody was used as the reference antibody (Benchmark). The immunohistochemical method was as follows, frozen tissue sections were fixed with frozen acetone for 5 minutes, then inactivated with 3% H2O2 PBS buffer for 5 minutes, washed with PBS, and incubated with 5 μg/mL Poly-HRP-polymer antibody conjugate for 5 minutes. The sections were washed with PBS, and the reaction was terminated after 3 minutes of DAB substrate color development, and photographed with a microscope. Table 17 summarized the IHC staining results of 9D1 and 5M9 humanized antibodies on frozen sections of 16 cases of gastric cancer, showing that the staining results of the negative control (hIgG isotype antibody) were negative on all tissues, and the positive staining rate of the reference antibody (Benchmark) 175D10 was 31.3% (−5/16), while the positive staining rates of h9D1-V1, h9D1-V2, h5M9-V7 and h5M9-V10 were significantly higher than those of the reference antibody 175D10, reaching 75% (12/16), 62.5% (10/16), 75% (12/16) and 81.25% (13/16), and the staining intensity of humanized 9D1 and 5M9 antibodies was significantly stronger than that of 175D10 in positively stained tissues (as shown in
The following were the amino acid sequences of the heavy chain variable region and light chain variable region of h9D1-V1 and h9D1-V2 (also known as h9D1V1 and h9D1V2). Their heavy chain constant region sequences and light chain constant region sequences were SEQ ID NO: 38 and SEQ ID NO: 39, respectively.
The IHC staining results of 9D1 and 5M9 humanized antibodies and control antibodies on frozen sections of normal human heart (3 cases), liver (3 cases), spleen (3 cases), lung (3 cases) and kidney (3 cases) were summarized as follows as shown in Table 18, and all staining results were negative.
The above results showed that, compared to the reference antibody (Benchmark) 175D10 antibody, the humanized 9D1 and 5M9 antibodies had significantly improved specific positive staining rate and staining intensity on gastric cancer tissues, and did not have nonspecific tissue cross-reactivity on non-targeted major organ tissues. This suggested the high druggability properties of 9D1 and 5M9 antibodies, which maximized tumor targeting without off-target toxicity.
This example studies the anti-tumor effects of h9D1V1 antibody and positive control antibody 175D10 on tumor-bearing mice. CB17-SCAD mice (Vitamin Lihua, strain code 404) were entered into the experimental animal breeding room, quarantined for 7 days, cell quarantined, and entered into the experiment after passing the test. The mice were inoculated with 5×106 HEK293-hCLDN18.2 cells with a volume of 100 μl (Matrigel (Biocoat, Cat. No. 356234): PBS=1:1) in the middle of the flank, observed for 1 day, and on the second day after inoculation, randomly divided into three groups (PBS group, 175D10, h9D1V1), 9 animals in each group, and intraperitoneal administration (200 μg/mouse, administration concentration of 1 mg/mL, administration volume of 200 μL, twice a week for 4 weeks) was started. Tumor volume was measured one week after inoculation, and then every 3 days, and body weight was measured every 6 days once. One-way-ANOVA, Tukey post-hoc test was used for statistics, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. The results were shown in
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202010086516.8 | Feb 2020 | CN | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CN2021/076482 | 2/10/2021 | WO |
