Anticore endotoxin F(ab')2 equine immunoglobulin fragments protect against lethal effects of gram-negative bacterial sepsis.

Gram-negative bacterial sepsis and shock remain a cause of substantial morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients despite appropriate antimicrobial therapy, fluid resuscitation, and monitoring. We sought to test the ability of equine antibody directed against core endotoxin, a portion of bacterial outer membrane lipopolysaccharide common to many gram-negative microorganisms, to bind to various gram-negative bacteria in vitro, to promote bacterial phagocytosis by leukocytes, and to protect against lethal gram-negative bacteremia in mice. The importance of the IgG Fc leukocyte attachment site was examined by comparing the ability of intact IgG and IgG F(ab')2 fragments to protect against lethality during murine sepsis. A single horse was immunized with Escherichia coli J5, an organism that expresses a portion of core endotoxin extensively on the cell surface. Preimmunization IgG and F(ab')2 possessed no titer as determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, did not promote in vitro phagocytosis, and did not protect in vivo. Postimmunization IgG and F(ab')2 possessed a significant titer to E. coli J5 whole cell and lipopolysaccharide antigens and provided significant (p less than 0.05) protection in vivo during lethal intravenous sepsis caused by either E. coli J5, E. coli 0111:B4, Klebsiella pneumoniae, or Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Only postimmunization IgG, but not F(ab')2, promoted in vitro phagocytosis of these same organisms. We therefore hypothesized that protection occurred as a result of antitoxin activity rather than opsonization and phagocytosis, as F(ab')2 fragments were as active as the intact molecule. Further studies must be done to determine the role of anticore endotoxin antibody in conjunction with antibiotics so that appropriate clinical studies may be undertaken.