Ryosuke Nakano

Nonfucosylated Therapeutic IgG1 Antibody Can Evade the Inhibitory Effect of Serum Immunoglobulin G on Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity through its High Binding to FcγRIIIa

Purpose: Recent studies have revealed that fucosylated therapeutic IgG1s need high concentrations to compensate for FcγRIIIa-competitive inhibition of antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) by endogenous human plasma IgG. Here, we investigated whether ADCC of nonfucosylated therapeutic IgG1 is also influenced by plasma IgG in the same way as fucosylated IgG1s. Experimental Design:Ex vivo ADCC upon CD20+ human B cells was induced by incubation of human whole blood with nonfucosylated and/or fucosylated anti-CD20 IgG1s rituximab, and quantified by measuring the remaining CD19+ human B cells using flow cytometry. Results: Nonfucosylated anti-CD20 showed markedly higher (over 100-fold based on EC50) ex vivo B-cell depletion activity than its fucosylated counterpart in the presence of plasma IgG. The efficacy of fucosylated anti-CD20 was greatly diminished in plasma, resulting in the need for a high concentration (over 1.0 μg/mL) to achieve saturated efficacy. In contrast, nonfucosylated anti-CD20 reached saturated ADCC at lower concentrations (0.01-0.1 μg/mL) with much higher efficacy than fucosylated anti-CD20 in all nine donors through improved FcγRIIIa binding. Noteworthy, the high efficacy of nonfucosylated anti-CD20 was inhibited by addition of fucosylated anti-CD20. Thus, the efficacy of a 1:9 mixture (10 μg/mL) of nonfucosylated and fucosylated anti-CD20s was inferior to that of a 1,000-fold dilution (0.01 μg/mL) of nonfucosylated anti-CD20 alone. Conclusions: Our data showed that nonfucosylated IgG1, not including fucosylated counterparts, can evade the inhibitory effect of plasma IgG on ADCC through its high FcγRIIIa binding. Hence, nonfucosylated IgG1 exhibits strong therapeutic potential through dramatically enhanced ADCC at low doses in humans in vivo.

Non-fucosylated therapeutic antibodies: the next generation of therapeutic antibodies

Therapeutic antibody IgG1 has two N-linked oligosaccharide chains bound to the Fc region. The oligosaccharides are of the complex biantennary type, composed of a trimannosyl core structure with the presence or absence of core fucose, bisecting N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), galactose, and terminal sialic acid, which gives rise to structural heterogeneity. Both human serum IgG and therapeutic antibodies are well known to be heavily fucosylated. Recently, antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC), a lytic attack on antibody-targeted cells, has been found to be one of the critical effector functions responsible for the clinical efficacy of therapeutic antibodies such as anti-CD20 IgG1 rituximab (Rituxan®) and anti-Her2/neu IgG1 trastuzumab (Herceptin®). ADCC is triggered upon the binding of lymphocyte receptors (FcγRs) to the antibody Fc region. The activity is dependent on the amount of fucose attached to the innermost GlcNAc of N-linked Fc oligosaccharide via an α-1,6-linkage, and is dramatically enhanced by a reduction in fucose. Non-fucosylated therapeutic antibodies show more potent efficacy than their fucosylated counterparts both in vitro and in vivo, and are not likely to be immunogenic because their carbohydrate structures are a normal component of natural human serum IgG. Thus, the application of non-fucosylated antibodies is expected to be a powerful and elegant approach to the design of the next generation therapeutic antibodies with improved efficacy. In this review, we discuss the importance of the oligosaccharides attached to the Fc region of therapeutic antibodies, especially regarding the inhibitory effect of fucosylated therapeutic antibodies on the efficacy of non-fucosylated counterparts in one medical agent. The impact of completely non-fucosylated therapeutic antibodies on therapeutic fields will be also discussed.

Generation of an industrially ideal host cell line for producing completely-defucosylated antibody with enhanced antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC)

To generate industrially applicable new host cell lines for antibody production with optimizing antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) we focused on the most important carbohydrate structure “fucose residues attached to the innermost GlcNAc residue of N-linked oligosaccharides via -1,6 linkage” (Shields, 2002; Shinkawa, 2003), and succeeded in disrupting both FUT8 ( -1,6-fucosyltransferase gene) alleles in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line by sequential homologous recombination. FUT8-/cell lines have morphology and growth kinetics similar to those of the parent. Antibodies produced by the engineered CHO cell lines strongly bound to human Fc receptor IIIa (Fc RIIIa) and showed approximately two orders of magnitude higher ADCC than antiCD20 antibodies (Rituxan) produced by parental cell lines without changing antigen-binding and complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC). Moreover, the engineered cell line remains stable, producing completelydefucosylated antibody with fixed quality and efficacy even in serum-free fed-batch culture. Thus, our approaches provide a new strategy for controlling the glycosylation profile of therapeutic recombinant proteins and could be a considerable advantage for the manufacture of glycoprotein therapeutics, especially antibodies.