Uncovering the Interleukin-12 Pharmacokinetic Desensitization Mechanism and Its Consequences with Mathematical Modeling

The cytokine interleukin-12 (IL-12) is a potential immunotherapy because of its ability to induce a Th1 immune response. However, success in the clinic has been limited due to a phenomenon called IL-12 desensitization - the trend where repeated exposure to IL-12 leads to reduced IL-12 concentrations (pharmacokinetics) and biological effects (pharmacodynamics). Here, we investigated IL-12 pharmacokinetic desensitization via a modeling approach to (i) validate proposed mechanisms in literature and (ii) develop a mathematical model capable of predicting IL-12 pharmacokinetic desensitization. Two potential causes of IL-12 pharmacokinetic desensitization were identified: increased clearance or reduced bioavailability of IL-12 following repeated doses. Increased IL-12 clearance was previously proposed to occur due to the upregulation of IL-12 receptor on T cells that causes increased receptor-mediated clearance in the serum. However, our model with this mechanism, the accelerated-clearance model, failed to capture trends in clinical trial data. Alternatively, our novel reduced-bioavailability model assumed that upregulation of IL-12 receptor on T cells in the lymphatic system leads to IL-12 sequestration, inhibiting the transport to the blood. This model accurately fits IL-12 pharmacokinetic data from three clinical trials, supporting its biological relevance. Using this model, we analyzed the model parameter space to illustrate that IL-12 desensitization occurs over a robust range of parameter values and to identify the conditions required for desensitization. We next simulated local, continuous IL-12 delivery and identified several methods to mitigate systemic IL-12 exposure. Ultimately, our results provide quantitative validation of our proposed mechanism and allow for accurate prediction of IL-12 pharmacokinetics over repeated doses.