A Novel Format for Recombinant Antibody-interleukin-2 Fusion Proteins Exhibits Superior Tumor-targeting Properties

Overview

Journal Oncotarget

Specialty Oncology

Date 2020 Oct 28

PMID 33110477

Citations 8

Authors

Tiziano Ongaro

Baptiste Gouyou

Marco Stringhini

Riccardo Corbellari

Dario Neri

Alessandra Villa

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The targeted delivery of interleukin-2 to the tumor is gaining attention as an avenue to potentiate the action of T and NK cells at the site of disease. We have previously described the fusion of the L19 antibody, specific to the EDB domain of fibronectin, with human interleukin-2, using a non-covalent homodimeric diabody format. Here, we describe four novel formats for the L19-IL2 fusion, featuring different arrangements of antibody and IL2. A comparative quantitative biodistribution analysis in tumor-bearing mice using radioiodinated proteins revealed that the novel format (L19L19-IL2, with the antibody in single-chain diabody format) exhibited the best biodistribution results. assays on peripheral blood mononuclear cells showed a decrease activation of regulatory T cells when single IL2 domain was used. , both L19-IL2 and L19L19-IL2 inhibited tumor growth in immunocompetent mouse models of cancer. T-cell analysis revealed similar levels of CD4 and FoxP3 cells, with an expansion of the CD8 T cell in mice treated with L19-IL2 and L19L19-IL2. The percentage of CD4 regulatory T cells was markedly decreased with L19L19-IL2 combined with a mouse-specific PD-1 blocker. Collectively, these data indicate that the new L19L19-IL2 format exhibits favorable tumor-homing properties and mediates a potent anti-cancer activity .

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