Non-viral adeno-associated virus-based platform for stable expression of antibody combination therapeutics

Antibody combination therapeutics (ACTs) are polyvalent biopharmaceuticals that are uniquely suited for the control of complex diseases, including antibiotic resistant infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders and cancers. However, ACTs also represent a distinct manufacturing challenge because the independent manufacture and subsequent mixing of monoclonal antibodies quickly becomes cost prohibitive as more complex mixtures are envisioned. We have developed a virus-free recombinant protein expression platform based on adeno-associated viral (AAV) elements that is capable of rapid and consistent production of complex antibody mixtures in a single batch format. Using both multiplexed immunoassays and cation exchange (CIEX) chromatography, cell culture supernatants generated using our system were assessed for stability of expression and ratios of the component antibodies over time. Cultures expressing combinations of three to ten antibodies maintained consistent expression levels and stable ratios of component antibodies for at least 60 days. Cultures showed remarkable reproducibility following cell banking, and AAV-based cultures showed higher stability and productivity than non-AAV based cultures. Therefore, this non-viral AAV-based expression platform represents a predictable, reproducible, quick and cost effective method to manufacture or quickly produce for preclinical testing recombinant antibody combination therapies and other recombinant protein mixtures.     

Non-viral adeno-associated virus-based platform for stable expression of antibody combination therapeutics: Non-viral adeno-associated virus-based platform for stable expression of antibody combination therapeutics

Antibody combination therapeutics (ACTs) are polyvalent biopharmaceuticals that are uniquely suited for the control of complex diseases, including antibiotic resistant infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders and cancers. However, ACTs also represent a distinct manufacturing challenge because the independent manufacture and subsequent mixing of monoclonal antibodies quickly becomes cost prohibitive as more complex mixtures are envisioned. We have developed a virus-free recombinant protein expression platform based on adeno-associated viral (AAV) elements that is capable of rapid and consistent production of complex antibody mixtures in a single batch format. Using both multiplexed immunoassays and cation exchange (CIEX) chromatography, cell culture supernatants generated using our system were assessed for stability of expression and ratios of the component antibodies over time. Cultures expressing combinations of three to ten antibodies maintained consistent expression levels and stable ratios of component antibodies for at least 60 days. Cultures showed remarkable reproducibility following cell banking, and AAV-based cultures showed higher stability and productivity than non-AAV based cultures. Therefore, this non-viral AAV-based expression platform represents a predictable, reproducible, quick and cost effective method to manufacture or quickly produce for preclinical testing recombinant antibody combination therapies and other recombinant protein mixtures.     

Manufacture of recombinant polyclonal antibodies

Polyclonal antibody therapy in the form of hyper-immune serum has for more than a century been used for treatment of many infectious diseases. However, with the emergence of first antibiotics and later recombinant monoclonal antibody therapy, the use of hyper-immune serum has declined. The main reason for this is that methods for consistent manufacturing of safe hyper immune immunoglobulin products have been lacking. In contrast, manufacturing processes of recombinant monoclonal antibodies follow a well established schedule and it appears obvious to use similar methods to produce recombinant polyclonal products. However, the methods for monoclonal antibody manufacturing are, for several reasons, not directly applicable to generation and manufacture of polyclonal recombinant antibodies. A new production strategy based on recombinant mammalian producer cells has recently been developed to support consistent generation of recombinant polyclonal antibodies for therapeutic use. This review describes aspects of this novel technology with emphasis on the generation, production and characterization procedures employed, and provides comparison with alternative polyclonal and monoclonal antibody manufacturing strategies.     

Generation of stable cell clones expressing mixtures of human antibodies

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, a highly successful class of biological drugs, are conventionally manufactured in mammalian cell lines. A recent approach to increase the therapeutic effectiveness of monoclonal antibodies has been to combine two or more of them; however this increases the complexity of development and manufacture. To address this issue a method to efficiently express multiple monoclonal antibodies from a single cell has been developed and we describe here the generation of stable cell clones that express high levels of a human monoclonal antibody mixture. PER.C6® cells were transfected with a combination of plasmids containing genes encoding three different antibodies. Clones that express the three corresponding antibody specificities were identified, subcloned, and passaged in the absence of antibiotic selection pressure. At several time points, batch production runs were analyzed for stable growth and IgG production characteristics. The majority (11/12) of subclones analyzed expressed all three antibody specificities in constant ratios with total IgG productivity ranging between 15 and 20 pg/cell/day under suboptimal culture conditions after up to 67 population doublings. The growth and IgG production characteristics of the stable clones reported here resemble those of single monoclonal antibody cell lines from conventional clone generation programs. We conclude that the methodology described here is applicable to the generation of stable PER.C6® clones for industrial scale production of mixtures of antibodies. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2010;106: 741–750. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

重组抗体工程及其在肿瘤靶向及癌症治疗中的应用

在过去的十几年中,重组抗体工程在基础研究、医学和药物生产上已经成为最有希望的领域之一。重组抗体及其片段在正在进行诊断和治疗的临床试验中占所有生物蛋白的30％以上。研究集中在抗体作为理想的癌症靶向试剂方面,最近由于FDA批准使用第一个工程化治疗抗体而使热度达到极点。过去的几年中,在设计、筛选及生产新型工程化抗体方面已经取得了重大进展。改革的筛选方法已经能够分离出高亲和力的癌－靶向及抗病毒的抗体,后能够抑制病毒用于基因治疗。癌症诊断和治疗的另一个策略是将重组抗体片段与放射性同位素、药物、毒素、酶以及生物传感器表面进行融合。双特异性抗体及相关融合蛋白也已经生产出来用于癌症的免疫治疗,在抗癌疫苗以及T细胞补充策略上有效地增强了人免疫应答。     

Consistent manufacturing and quality control of a highly complex recombinant polyclonal antibody product for human therapeutic use

The beneficial effect of antibody therapy in human disease has become well established mainly for the treatment of cancer and immunological disorders. The inherent monospecificity of mAbs present limitations to mAb therapy which have become apparent notably in addressing complex entities like infectious agents or heterogenic endogenous targets. For such indications mixtures of antibodies comprising a combination of specificities would convey more potent biological effect which could translate into therapeutic efficacy. Recombinant polyclonal antibodies (rpAb) consisting of a defined number of well-characterized mAbs constitute a new class of target specific antibody therapy. We have developed a cost-efficient cell banking and single-batch manufacturing concept for the production of such products and demonstrate that a complex pAb composition, rozrolimupab, comprising 25 individual antibodies can be manufactured in a highly consistent manner in a scaled-up manufacturing process. We present a strategy for the release and characterization of antibody mixtures which constitute a complete series of chemistry, manufacturing, and control (CMC) analytical methods to address identity, purity, quantity, potency, and general characteristics. Finally we document selected quality attributes of rozrolimupab based on a battery of assays at the genetic-, protein-, and functional level and demonstrate that the manufactured rozrolimupab batches are highly pure and very uniform in their composition.     

Very large scale monoclonal antibody purification: the case for conventional unit operations

Technology development initiatives targeted for monoclonal antibody purification may be motivated by manufacturing limitations and are often aimed at solving current and future process bottlenecks. A subject under debate in many biotechnology companies is whether conventional unit operations such as chromatography will eventually become limiting for the production of recombinant protein therapeutics. An evaluation of the potential limitations of process chromatography and filtration using today's commercially available resins and membranes was conducted for a conceptual process scaled to produce 10 tons of monoclonal antibody per year from a single manufacturing plant, a scale representing one of the world's largest single-plant capacities for cGMP protein production. The process employs a simple, efficient purification train using only two chromatographic and two ultrafiltration steps, modeled after a platform antibody purification train that has generated 10 kg batches in clinical production. Based on analyses of cost of goods and the production capacity of this very large scale purification process, it is unlikely that non-conventional downstream unit operations would be needed to replace conventional chromatographic and filtration separation steps, at least for recombinant antibodies.     

Application of recombinant antibody fragments for troponin I measurements

The cardiac isoform of troponin I is a reliable biomarker of damaged cardiomyocytes that accompanies such severe cardiovascular diseases as myocardial infarction. Monoclonal antibody 19C7 recognizes troponin I in the blood-stream with high affinity and specificity. Recombinant antibodies can be used to improve detection systems based on monoclonal antibodies produced with hybridoma technology. In the present study, we compare the properties of monoclonal anti-body 19C7 and its recombinant fragments. It is shown that the recombinant antibody fragments demonstrate similar affinity values as monoclonal antibodies and can be applied for troponin I detection.     

Bispecific and bifunctional single chain recombinant antibodies

Bispecific and bifunctional monoclonal antibodies as second generation monoclonals, produced by conventional chemical or somatic methods, have proved useful in the immunodiagnosis and immunotherapy of cancer and other diseases. Recombinant antibodies produced by genetic engineering techniques have also become available for use in preclinical and clinical studies. Furthermore, through genetic engineering, it is possible to remove or add on key protein domains in order to create designer antibody molecules with two or more desired functions. This review summarizes the strategies for development of single chain variable fragment (scFv) bifunctional and bispecific antibodies. The advantages and disadvantages as well as the problems of generating the various bispecific and bifunctional antibody constructs are reported and discussed. Since conventionally prepared bispecific and bifunctional monoclonal antibodies have already shown promise in clinical trials and results from preclinical studies of recombinant bispecific antibodies are encouraging, clinical trials in humans of recombinant bispecific and bifunctional antibodies, as a new generation of biologicals, are likely to be the thrust in the next decade and beyond.     

High‐yield production of a human monoclonal IgG by rhizosecretion in hydroponic tobacco cultures

Rhizosecretion of recombinant pharmaceuticals from in vitro hydroponic transgenic plant cultures is a simple, low cost, reproducible and controllable production method. Here, we demonstrate the application and adaptation of this manufacturing platform to a human antivitronectin IgG₁ monoclonal antibody (mAb) called M12. The rationale for specific growth medium additives was established by phenotypic analysis of root structure and by LC‐ESI‐MS/MS profiling of the total protein content profile of the hydroponic medium. Through a combination of optimization approaches, mAb yields in hydroponic medium reached 46 μg/mL in 1 week, the highest figure reported for a recombinant mAb in a plant secretion‐based system to date. The rhizosecretome was determined to contain 104 proteins, with the mAb heavy and light chains the most abundant. This enabled evaluation of a simple, scalable extraction and purification protocol and demonstration that only minimal processing was necessary prior to protein A affinity chromatography. MALDI‐TOF MS revealed that purified mAb contained predominantly complex‐type plant N‐glycans, in three major glycoforms. The binding of M12 purified from hydroponic medium to vitronectin was comparable to its Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)‐derived counterpart. This study demonstrates that in vitro hydroponic cultivation coupled with recombinant protein rhizosecretion can be a practical, low‐cost production platform for monoclonal antibodies.     

A proteomics-based approach for monoclonal antibody characterization

The determination of monoclonal antibody specificity is dependent upon the availability of purified antigen. Such material is not always available and this has proven to be one of the rate-limiting steps in monoclonal antibody production. The aim of the present study was to develop a generic approach to defining antibody specificity that bypassed the need for pure antigens through the use of proteomics. The scheme and its application to several biological mixtures are described. The results demonstrate the ability of the approach to identify antibodies against both the major components and the minor contaminants of a protein mixture. This approach should markedly enhance the characterization of antibodies to complex antigen mixtures.     

A Single Dynamic Metabolic Model Can Describe mAb Producing CHO Cell Batch and Fed-Batch Cultures on Different Culture Media

CHO cell culture high productivity relies on optimized culture medium management under fed-batch or perfused chemostat strategies enabling high cell densities. In this work, a dynamic metabolic model for CHO cells was further developed, calibrated and challenged using datasets obtained under four different culture conditions, including two batch and two fed-batch cultures comparing two different culture media. The recombinant CHO-DXB11 cell line producing the EG2-hFc monoclonal antibody was studied. Quantification of extracellular substrates and metabolites concentration, viable cell density, monoclonal antibody concentration and intracellular concentration of metabolite intermediates of glycolysis, pentose-phosphate and TCA cycle, as well as of energetic nucleotides, were obtained for model calibration. Results suggest that a single model structure with a single set of kinetic parameter values is efficient at simulating viable cell behavior in all cases under study, estimating the time course of measured and non-measured intracellular and extracellular metabolites. Model simulations also allowed performing dynamic metabolic flux analysis, showing that the culture media and the fed-batch strategies tested had little impact on flux distribution. This work thus paves the way to an in silico platform allowing to assess the performance of different culture media and fed-batch strategies.     

Engineered antibody approaches for Alzheimer's disease immunotherapy

The accumulation of amyloid-β-peptide (Aβ or A-beta) in the brain is considered to be a key event in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Over the last decade, antibody strategies aimed at reducing high levels of Aβ in the brain and or neutralizing its toxic effects have emerged as one of the most promising treatments for AD. Early approaches using conventional antibody formats demonstrated the potential of immunotherapy, but also caused a range of undesirable side effects such meningoencephalitis, vasogenic edema or cerebral microhemorrhages in both murine and humans. This prompted the exploration of alternative approaches using engineered antibodies to avoid adverse immunological responses and provide a safer and more effective therapy. Encouraging results have been obtained using a range of recombinant antibody formats including, single chain antibodies, antibody domains, intrabodies, bispecific antibodies as well as Fc-engineered antibodies in transgenic AD mouse and primate models. This review will address recent progress using these recombinant antibodies against Aβ, highlighting their advantages over conventional monoclonal antibodies and delivery methods.     

Antibody engineering and modification technologies

Antibody engineering has become a well-developed discipline, encompassing discovery methods, production strategies, and modification techniques that have brought forth clinically investigated and marketed therapeutics. The realization of the long-standing goal of production of fully human monoclonal antibodies has focused intensive research on the clinical employment of this potent drug category. However, antibodies are large macromolecules that pose numerous challenges in formulation, optimal pharmacokinetics, manufacturing, stability, and process development. While further improvements in discovery technologies, such as phage display, ribosome display, and transgenic animals continue to advance our capacity to rapidly screen and refine optimal binding molecules, antibody engineers have recently focused more of their efforts on improving protein production and stability, as well as engineering improved biological properties in the effector domains of monoclonal antibodies. A second long-standing goal of antibody engineering, the development of targeted drugs, has not been wholly realized, but this obvious application for antibodies is currently undergoing increasing exploration. Minimal binding proteins, such as Fab, scFv, and single variable domains are the preferred targeting elements for some investigational drugs, whereas non-immunoglobulin scaffold proteins have been explored as binding proteins in other designs. The necessity to utilize non-protein components in targeted drugs, such as polymers, linkers, and cytotoxics, has brought a convergence of the fields of bioconjugate chemistry and protein engineering in experimental antibody therapeutics.     

Characterization of the glycosylation state of a recombinant monoclonal antibody using weak cation exchange chromatography and mass spectrometry.

Recombinant monoclonal antibody heterogeneity is inherent due to various enzymatic and non-enzymatic modifications. In this study, a recombinant humanized monoclonal IgG1 antibody with different states of glycosylation on the conserved asparagine residue in the CH(2) domain was analyzed by weak cation exchange chromatography. Two major peaks were observed and were further characterized by enzymatic digestion and mass spectrometry. It was found that this recombinant monoclonal antibody contained three glycosylation states of antibody with zero, one or two glycosylated heavy chains. The peak that eluted earlier on the cation exchange column contained antibodies with two glycosylated heavy chains containing fucosylated biantennary complex oligosaccharides with zero, one or two terminal galactose residues. The peak that eluted later from the column contained antibodies with either zero, one or two glycosylated heavy chains. The oligosaccharide on the antibodies eluted in the later peak was composed of only two GlcNAc residues. These results indicate that conformational changes in large proteins such as monoclonal antibodies, caused by different types of neutral oligosaccharides as well as the absence of oligosaccharides, can be differentiated by cation exchange column chromatography.     

重组抗体药物研究进展及应用

重组抗体药物的发展经历了鼠源单克隆抗体（McAb）、人 鼠嵌合抗体、人源化抗体和全人抗体等阶段,目前初步应用于抗肿瘤、抗自身免疫病、抗感染等领域。保持和提高抗体的亲和力、降低抗体的免疫原性是抗体药物基因工程改造的两大原则。在嵌合抗体成功的基础上,通过CDR移植、表面修饰、抗体库以及转基因鼠技术,逐步提高人源化程度至100%。然而,实验室水平的研究结果与实际应用仍然存在一定差距。就重组抗体药物的基本概况、现存的问题与可能的解决办法以及在肿瘤、病毒性疾病和阿尔茨海默病治疗上的应用情况等进行了综述。     

单链抗体scFv-GCN4在大肠杆菌中的重组表达及活性检测

目的:重组表达融合GST或MBP标签的单链抗体scFv-GCN4,对其进行分离纯化,并检测其生物学活性。方法:构建pBAD-MBP-scFv-GCN4及pBAD-GST-scFv-GCN4表达载体,使用大肠杆菌(Escherichia coli)Top10菌株表达并亲和纯化重组蛋白MBP-scFv-GCN4及GST-scFv-GCN4。构建p ET30a-Nus-GCN4载体,使用E.coliBL21(DE3)菌株表达重组蛋白Nus-GCN4及Nus。以重组的GCN4为特异性抗原,通过Pull-down技术和WesternBlot技术,检测MBP-scFv-GCN4及GST-scFv-GCN4的抗体活性及特异性。结果:重组菌株E.coli Top10可高效表达可溶性的MBP-scFv-GCN4和GST-scFv-GCN4蛋白,通过亲和纯化,均得到了高纯度的重组蛋白。重组菌株E.coliBL21(DE3)可高效表达可溶性的Nus与Nus-GCN4蛋白。Pull-down及WesternBlot结果显示,重组蛋白MBP-scFv-GCN4及GST-scFv-GCN4均可以高效、特异地识别重组的GCN4抗原。结论:重组抗体GST-scFv-GCN4及MBP-scFv-GCN4均可在E.coli中高效表达,并且具有良好的抗体活性及特异性。     

Multispecificity of a recombinant anti‐ras monoclonal antibody

Recombinant monoclonal antibodies (Ab's) have widespread application as research tools, diagnostic reagents and as biotherapeutics. Whilst studying the cellular molecular switch protein m‐ras, a recombinant monoclonal antibody to m‐ras was generated for use as a research tool. Antibody genes from a single rabbit B cell secreting IgG to an m‐ras specific peptide sequence were expressed in mammalian cells, and monoclonal rabbit IgG binding was characterized by ELISA and peptide array blotting. Although the monoclonal Ab was selected for specificity to m‐ras peptide, it also bound to both recombinant full‐length m‐ras and h‐ras proteins. The cross‐reactive binding of the monoclonal Ab to h‐ras was defined by peptide array blot revealing that the Ab showed preference for peptide sequences containing multiple positively charged amino acid residues. These data reinforce the concept of antibody multispecificity through multiple interactions of the Ab paratope with diverse polypeptides. They also emphasize the importance of immunogen and Ab selection processes when generating recombinant monoclonal Ab's.     

A strategy for clone selection under different production conditions

Top performing clones have failed at the manufacturing scale while the true best performer may have been rejected early in the screening process. Therefore, the ability to screen multiple clones in complex fed-batch processes using multiple process variations can be used to assess robustness and to identify critical factors. This dynamic ranking of clones' strategy requires the execution of many parallel experiments than traditional approaches. Therefore, this approach is best suited for micro-bioreactor models which can perform hundreds of experiments quickly and efficiently. In this study, a fully monitored and controlled small scale platform was used to screen eight CHO clones producing a recombinant monoclonal antibody across several process variations, including different feeding strategies, temperature shifts and pH control profiles. The first screen utilized 240 micro-bioreactors were run for two weeks for this assessment of the scale-down model as a high-throughput tool for clone evaluation. The richness of the outcome data enable to clearly identify the best and worst clone as well as process in term of maximum monoclonal antibody titer. The follow-up comparison study utilized 180 micro-bioreactors in a full factorial design and a subset of 12 clone/process combinations was selected to be run parallel in duplicate shake flasks. Good correlation between the micro-bioreactor predictions and those made in shake flasks with a Pearson correlation value of 0.94. The results also demonstrate that this micro-scale system can perform clone screening and process optimization for gaining significant titer improvements simultaneously. This dynamic ranking strategy can support better choices of production clones.     

Decisional tool to assess current and future process robustness in an antibody purification facility

Increases in cell culture titers in existing facilities have prompted efforts to identify strategies that alleviate purification bottlenecks while controlling costs. This article describes the application of a database‐driven dynamic simulation tool to identify optimal purification sizing strategies and visualize their robustness to future titer increases. The tool harnessed the benefits of MySQL to capture the process, business, and risk features of multiple purification options and better manage the large datasets required for uncertainty analysis and optimization. The database was linked to a discrete‐event simulation engine so as to model the dynamic features of biopharmaceutical manufacture and impact of resource constraints. For a given titer, the tool performed brute force optimization so as to identify optimal purification sizing strategies that minimized the batch material cost while maintaining the schedule. The tool was applied to industrial case studies based on a platform monoclonal antibody purification process in a multisuite clinical scale manufacturing facility. The case studies assessed the robustness of optimal strategies to batch‐to‐batch titer variability and extended this to assess the long‐term fit of the platform process as titers increase from 1 to 10 g/L, given a range of equipment sizes available to enable scale intensification efforts. Novel visualization plots consisting of multiple Pareto frontiers with tie‐lines connecting the position of optimal configurations over a given titer range were constructed. These enabled rapid identification of robust purification configurations given titer fluctuations and the facility limit that the purification suites could handle in terms of the maximum titer and hence harvest load. © 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 28: 1019–1028, 2012