Division of Drug Delivery Technology, Leiden/Amsterdam Center for Drug Research, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
MAbs. 2012 Nov-Dec;4(6):740-52. doi: 10.4161/mabs.22066. Epub 2012 Sep 5.
The presence of protein aggregates in biopharmaceutical formulations is of great concern for safety and efficacy reasons. The aim of this study was to correlate the type and amount of IgG monoclonal antibody aggregates with their immunogenic potential. IgG degradation was obtained by freeze-thawing cycles, pH-shift cycles, heating, shaking and metal-catalyzed oxidation. The size, amount, morphology and type of intermolecular bonds of aggregates, as well as structural changes and epitope integrity were characterized. These formulations were injected in mice transgenic (TG) for human genes for Ig heavy and light chains and their non-transgenic (NTG) counterparts. Anti-drug antibody (ADA) titers were determined by bridging ELISA. Both unstressed IgG and freeze-thawed formulation did not induce measurable ADA levels. A mild antibody response was obtained in a fairly small percentage of mice, when injected with shaken, pH-shifted and heated formulations. The metal-catalyzed oxidized IgG formulation was the most immunogenic one, in both ADA titers and number of responders. The overall titers of NTG responders were significantly higher than the ones produced by TG mice, whereas there was no significant difference between the overall number of TG and NTG responders. This study reinforces the important role of protein aggregates on immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins and provides new insight into the immunogenic potential of different types of IgG aggregates. The results indicate that the quality of the IgG aggregates has more impact on the development of an immune response than their quantity or size.
在生物制药制剂中存在蛋白质聚集物是出于安全性和功效性的考虑。本研究旨在关联 IgG 单克隆抗体聚集物的类型和数量与其免疫原性潜力。通过冻融循环、pH 转换循环、加热、震荡和金属催化氧化使 IgG 降解。聚集物的大小、数量、形态和类型,以及结构变化和抗原表位完整性均进行了表征。这些制剂被注射到转人重链和轻链基因的转基因(TG)和非转基因(NTG)小鼠中。通过桥接 ELISA 测定抗药物抗体(ADA)滴度。未受应力的 IgG 和冻融制剂均未诱导可测量的 ADA 水平。当用震荡、pH 转换和加热的制剂进行注射时,相当小比例的小鼠中产生了轻度的抗体反应。在金属催化氧化的 IgG 制剂中,ADA 滴度和应答者数量均是最具免疫原性的。NTG 应答者的总体滴度明显高于 TG 小鼠产生的滴度,而 TG 和 NTG 应答者的总数之间没有显著差异。这项研究强调了蛋白质聚集物对治疗性蛋白免疫原性的重要作用,并为不同类型的 IgG 聚集物的免疫原性潜力提供了新的见解。结果表明,IgG 聚集物的质量对免疫反应的发展比其数量或大小更有影响。