CD94+ Natural Killer cells potentiate pulmonary ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Pulmonary ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a major contributor to poor lung transplant outcomes. We recently demonstrated a central role of airway-centered NK cells in mediating IRI; however, there are no existing effective therapies for directly targeting NK cells in humans. We hypothesized that a depleting anti-CD94 monoclonal antibody (mAb) would provide therapeutic benefit in mouse and human models of IRI based on high levels of KLRD1 (CD94) transcripts in bronchoalveolar lavage samples from lung transplant patients. We found that CD94 is highly expressed on mouse and human NK cells, with increased expression during IRI. Anti-mouse and anti-human mAbs against CD94 showed effective NK cell depletion in mouse and human models and blunted lung damage and airway epithelial killing. In two different allogeneic orthotopic lung transplant mouse models, anti-CD94 treatment during induction reduced early lung injury and chronic inflammation relative to control therapies. Anti-CD94 did not increase donor antigen-presenting cells that could alter long-term graft acceptance. Lung transplant induction regimens incorporating anti-CD94 treatment may safely improve early clinical outcomes.

An optimal "Click" formulation strategy for antibody-drug conjugate synthesis.

As a versatile reaction for bioconjugation, Cu(I)-catalyzed alkyne-azide cycloaddition (CuAAC) has enormous potential in the synthesis of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). In order to optimize CuAAC-based ADC synthesis, we characterized kinetically different formulation processes by mimicking ADC synthesis using small molecules and subsequently revealed unique kinetic behaviors of different combinations of alkyne and azide conditions. Our results indicate that under ADC synthesis conditions, for an alkyne-containing drug, its concentration has minimal impact on the reaction rate when an antibody has a non-metal-chelating azide but is proportional to concentration when an antibody contains a metal-chelating azide; however, for an alkyne-containing antibody, the ADC synthesis rate is proportional to the concentration of a drug with a non-metal-chelating azide but displays almost no dependence on drug concentration with a metal-chelating azide. Based on our results, we designed and tested an optimal "click" formulation strategy that allowed rapid and cost-effective synthesis of a new ADC.

Antibody targeting of HER2/HER3 signaling overcomes heregulin-induced resistance to PI3K inhibition in prostate cancer.

Dysregulated expression and/or mutations of the various components of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway occur with high frequency in prostate cancer and are associated with the development and progression of castration resistant tumors. However, small molecule kinase inhibitors that target this signaling pathway have limited efficacy in inhibiting tumor growth, primarily due to compensatory survival signals through receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). Although members of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), or HER, family of RTKs are strongly implicated in the development and progression of prostate cancer, targeting individual members of this family such as EGFR or HER2 has resulted in limited success in clinical trials. Multiple studies indicate a critical role for HER3 in the development of resistance against both HER-targeted therapies and PI3K/Akt pathway inhibitors. In this study, we found that the growth inhibitory effect of GDC-0941, a class I PI3K inhibitor, is markedly reduced in the presence of heregulin. Interestingly, this effect is more pronounced in cells lacking phosphatase and tensin homolog function. Heregulin-mediated resistance to GDC-0941 is associated with reactivation of Akt downstream of HER3 phosphorylation. Importantly, combined blockade of HER2 and HER3 signaling by an anti-HER2/HER3 bispecific antibody or a mixture of anti-HER2 and anti-HER3 antibodies restores sensitivity to GDC-0941 in heregulin-treated androgen-dependent and -independent prostate cancer cells. These studies indicate that the combination of PI3K inhibitors with HER2/HER3 targeting antibodies may constitute a promising therapeutic strategy for prostate cancer.

Engineering a HER2-specific antibody-drug conjugate to increase lysosomal delivery and therapeutic efficacy.

We improve the potency of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) containing the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-specific antibody pertuzumab by substantially reducing their affinity for HER2 at acidic endosomal pH relative to near neutral pH. These engineered pertuzumab variants show increased lysosomal delivery and cytotoxicity towards tumor cells expressing intermediate HER2 levels. In HER2int xenograft tumor models in mice, the variants show higher therapeutic efficacy than the parent ADC and a clinically approved HER2-specific ADC.

Engineering multivalent antibodies to target heregulin-induced HER3 signaling in breast cancer cells.

The use of antibodies in therapy and diagnosis has undergone an unprecedented expansion during the past two decades. This is due in part to innovations in antibody engineering that now offer opportunities for the production of "second generation" antibodies with multiple specificities or altered valencies. The targeting of individual components of the human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER)3-PI3K signaling axis, including the preferred heterodimerization partner HER2, is known to have limited anti-tumor effects. The efficacy of antibodies or small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in targeting this axis is further reduced by the presence of the HER3 ligand, heregulin. To address these shortcomings, we performed a comparative analysis of two distinct approaches toward reducing the proliferation and signaling in HER2 overexpressing tumor cells in the presence of heregulin. These strategies both involve the use of engineered antibodies in combination with the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)/HER2 specific TKI, lapatinib. In the first approach, we generated a bispecific anti-HER2/HER3 antibody that, in the presence of lapatinib, is designed to sequester HER3 into inactive HER2-HER3 dimers that restrain HER3 interactions with other possible dimerization partners. The second approach involves the use of a tetravalent anti-HER3 antibody with the goal of inducing efficient HER3 internalization and degradation. In combination with lapatinib, we demonstrate that although the multivalent HER3 antibody is more effective than its bivalent counterpart in reducing heregulin-mediated signaling and growth, the bispecific HER2/HER3 antibody has increased inhibitory activity. Collectively, these observations provide support for the therapeutic use of bispecifics in combination with TKIs to recruit HER3 into complexes that are functionally inert.

Investigation of the cross-ratios method for point-of-gaze estimation.

The cross-ratios method for point-of-gaze (PoG) estimation uses the invariance property of cross-ratios in projective transformations. The inherent causes of the subject-dependent PoG estimation bias exhibited by this method have not been well characterized in the literature. Using a model of the eye and the components of a system (camera, light sources) that estimates PoG, a theoretical framework for the cross-ratios method is developed. The analysis of the cross-ratios method within this framework shows that the subject-dependent estimation bias is caused mainly by: 1) the angular deviation of the visual axis from the optic axis and 2) the fact that the virtual image of the pupil center is not coplanar with the virtual images of the light sources that illuminate the eye (corneal reflections). The theoretical framework provides a closed-form analytical expression that predicts the estimation bias as a function of subject-specific eye parameters. The theoretical framework also provides a clear physical interpretation for an existing empirically derived two-step procedure that compensates for the estimation bias and shows that the first step of this procedure is equivalent to moving the corneal reflections to a new plane that minimizes the distance from this plane to the virtual image of the pupil center.