Abstract
Identification of targets for cancer therapy requires the understanding of the in vivo roles of proteins, which can be derived from studies using gene-targeted mice. An alternative strategy is the administration of inhibitory monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), causing acute disruption of the target protein function(s). This approach has the advantage of being a model for therapeutic targeting. mAbs for use in mouse models can be obtained through immunization of gene-deficient mice with the autologous protein. Such mAbs react with both species-specific epitopes and epitopes conserved between species. mAbs against proteins involved in extracellular proteolysis, including plasminogen activators urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA), their inhibitor PAI-1, the uPA receptor (uPAR), two matrix metalloproteinases (MMP9 and MMP14), as well as the collagen internalization receptor uPARAP, have been developed. The inhibitory mAbs against uPA and uPAR block plasminogen activation and thereby hepatic fibrinolysis in vivo. Wound healing, another plasmin-dependent process, is delayed by an inhibitory mAb against uPA in the adult mouse. Thromboembolism can be inhibited by anti-PAI-1 mAbs in vivo. In conclusion, function-blocking mAbs are well-suited for targeted therapy in mouse models of different diseases, including cancer.
Introduction
Most of our understanding of the in vivo roles of extracellular proteases, their cellular receptors and inhibitors is derived from studies using gene-targeted mice. The phenotype of a gene-deficient mouse can, however, be influenced by redundancy, when the function of the protein encoded for by the inactivated gene is compensated due to overlapping functions between proteins (Page-McCaw et al., ; Stevens et al., ). Identification of the in vivo function of a protease/receptor in an adult mouse can be obtained by administration of inhibitory monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), causing acute disruption of the target protein function(s), further offering the advantage of directly serving as a model for therapeutic targeting. In order to avoid immunogenicity effects in mice, the mAbs used should be of murine origin. Development of such mAbs requires immunization of gene-deficient mice with the autologous target protein.
Generation of mAbs against murine proteases using gene-deficient mice was first described by Declerck et al. (). Mice lacking the gene encoding either of the two main plasminogen activators, i.e., tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) and urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), were immunized with murine tPA (mtPA) and muPA, respectively. Sera from the immunized mice had high titers of anti-mtPA and anti-muPA antibodies, while similar immunizations of wild-type mice resulted in no or little reactivity toward mtPA and muPA, consistent with these proteins being self-antigens in wild-type mice (Opdenakker et al., ).
In this review, the properties of mouse mAbs, all generated by use of gene-deficient mice, will be described with respect to specificity, epitope location, cross-reactivity with the homologous protein from other species (conserved epitopes), and inhibitory function in vitro and in vivo. The antibody-mediated in vivo effect will be compared with that observed in gene-deficient mice to reveal similarities or changes between acute disruption of function in the adult animal and genetic disruption in utero.
Monoclonal Antibodies against Murine Plasminogen Activators
To generate mAbs against mtPA, mice were immunized twice and subsequently boosted with 10 μg recombinant mtPA before spleen cell isolation and fusion to myeloma cells. Hybridomas were selected for their ability to secrete antibodies reacting with mtPA using ELISA, resulting in the isolation of 203 hybridomas from two fusions. The amount of coating antigen in the ELISA was rather high (200 ng mtPA/well), allowing antibodies with relatively low affinity to be isolated. Of the 203 mAbs, 21 were selective for mouse tPA, while the residual mAbs cross-reacted with tPA from one or more species, i.e., rat, human, and vampire-bat tPA. Importantly, no anti-mtPA mAbs recognized muPA (Declerck et al., ).
The mAbs were also assayed for their inhibitory effect on the ability of tPA to activate plasminogen (Figure 1). Interestingly, it was demonstrated that of the 21 mAbs recognizing epitopes specific for mtPA, six were inhibitory, whereas 105 of the 182 cross-reacting mAbs were inhibitory (Declerck et al., ). Hence, based on the apparent correlation between inhibitory properties and cross-reactivity, it was suggested that epitopes conserved between species are functionally important for plasminogen activation (Declerck et al., ). Two of the anti-mtPA mAbs were used for design of a quantitative ELISA, enabling measurements of mtPA in tissue and body fluids from mice (Declerck et al., ).
Figure 1
Using the same overall strategy, uPA−/− mice were immunized with muPA, resulting in 38 hybridomas producing antibodies against muPA (Declerck et al., ). Specificity test showed negative reaction with mtPA for all of these antibodies and interestingly, none of the anti-muPA mAbs cross-reacted with human uPA (Declerck et al., ). A quantitative ELISA was designed using two of the anti-muPA mAbs (Declerck et al., ). Due to the low affinity of these anti-muPA mAbs, the sensitivity of this assay was 10-fold lower than that of mtPA, precluding measurements of muPA in plasma.
In a study with the aim to generate high affinity anti-muPA mAbs with in vivo efficacy, uPA−/− mice were immunized six times, followed by three boosting injections with recombinant pro-muPA (Lund et al., ). To ensure isolation of high affinity mAbs, the wells were coated with low amounts of antigen (2 ng pro-muPA/well) in the hybridoma screening ELISA, resulting in identification of nine anti-muPA mAb secreting hybridomas. Especially, two mAbs (mU1 and mU3), possessing epitopes in the uPA B-chain, encompassing the catalytic site, were demonstrated to interfere with the function of mouse uPA. Specificity test demonstrated no cross-reactivity with mouse tPA, and interestingly neither antibody recognized human uPA. Both mU1 and mU3 are high affinity antibodies. mU3 displays higher affinity for both pro-muPA (KD = 0.03 nM) and muPA (KD = 0.2 nM), as compared to mU1 [pro-muPA (KD = 0.2 nM) and muPA (KD = 1.3 nM)]. These antibodies efficiently and dose-dependently block uPA-mediated plasminogen activation. mU1 prevents both plasmin-mediated pro-uPA activation and uPA-mediated plasminogen activation (Figure 1), while mU3 only inhibits the latter of these reactions.
To test the effect of these mAbs in vitro in a multicomponent system, a cellular assay using uPA-activatable anthrax pro-toxin (Liu et al., ) was employed. In this assay, a cytotoxic effect is released as a result of cell-bound uPA activity, which serves to cleave an engineered protective antigen, PrAg-U2. Pre-incubation of murine monocyte macrophage-like P388D.1 cells with either mU1 or mU3 led to significant rescue of cells simultaneously exposed to PrAg-U2 and the recombinant toxin FP59 (Lund et al., ). Interestingly, the rescue effect of mU1 was stronger than that of mU3 in vitro. As uPA−/− mice are insensitive to anthrax pro-toxin treatment (Liu et al., ), this system was used to determine the in vivo efficacy of mU1 and mU3 in wild-type mice. Two injections of the mAbs (60 mg/kg/dose) were administered to the mice prior to anthrax pro-toxin treatment. Of the wild-type mice treated with mU1, eight out of 10 mice survived, whereas only few mice treated with either mU3 or the isotype-matched negative control mAb survived, demonstrating mU1, but not mU3, to possess in vivo efficacy by blocking uPA activity (Figure 2; Lund et al., , ).
Figure 2
Monoclonal Antibodies against muPAR
The main function of the uPA receptor (uPAR), is to localize the proteolytic activity to the cell surface (Ellis and Danø,
uPAR consist of three domains and the integrity of this structure is a prerequisite for the high affinity binding of uPA and of vitronectin (Behrendt et al.,
The anti-muPAR mAbs were tested in rescue experiments using the above-described uPA-activatable anthrax pro-toxin assay (Pass et al.,
Monoclonal Antibodies against mPAI-1
PAI-1 is the primary endogenous inhibitor of both tPA and uPA. The first reported murine mAbs against mPAI-1 were generated using the same protocol as for the anti-mtPA mAbs (see above), except that the immunized mice were PAI-1−/− and mPAI-1 was the antigen (Carmeliet et al.,
In a recent study, the aim was to generate inhibitory anti-mPAI-1 mAbs reacting with the glycosylated form of mPAI-1 bound to vitronectin (Van De Craen et al.,
The in vivo efficacy of the five most inhibitory mAbs was tested in a thromboplastin-dependent mouse thromboembolism model, designed to demonstrate the potential function of the mAbs to rescue injected mtPA from mPAI-1-mediated inactivation. Mice were injected with 10 mg/kg of the mAb via the tail vein. Thromboplastin was injected simultaneously with mtPA to evoke thromboembolism. A reduced physical activity was used as the read-out for the thromboembolic condition. Evaluation 15 min. after treatment, demonstrated all five inhibitory anti-mPAI-1 mAbs to possess in vivo efficacy, as the mAb-treated mice were more active than control mice (Van De Craen et al.,
Monoclonal Antibodies against mMMPs
mMMP9
Matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) belongs to the subfamily of gelatinases and is active in degradation of various components in the extracellular matrix, including early collagen cleavage fragments. Anti-mMMP9 mAbs have been generated by immunization of MMP9−/− mice with recombinant mMMP9 (Descamps et al.,
mMMP14/mMT1-MMP
All of the above-mentioned gene-deficient mice have very mild, if at all comprised phenotypes and a normal life span (Carmeliet et al.,
Monoclonal Antibodies against uPARAP/Endo180
uPARAP (also designated Endo180), a member of the mannose receptor family, is a collagen internalization receptor and a type 1 transmembrane protein (Behrendt, 2004; Engelholm et al.,
Comparison of Effects of Acute Disruption of Protein Function in the Adult Animal and Genetic Disruption in utero
Studies with gene-deficient animals have demonstrated uPA to play an important role in skin wound healing and extravascular fibrin clearance in the liver as well as the presence of a strong redundancy between uPA and tPA (Bugge et al.,
Both uPA−/−;tPA−/− and uPAR−/−;tPA−/− mice spontaneously develop hepatic fibrin deposits (Bugge et al.,
A recent study has demonstrated uPARAP−/− mice to possess increased accumulation of both total fibrillar collagen and collagen type IV upon CCl4-induced liver fibrosis (Madsen et al.,
In addition to the overlapping roles between uPA and tPA in certain physiological processes, it was recently demonstrated that ablation of MMP9 in combination with either plasminogen activator impairs normal gestation, resulting in a non-Mendelian distribution of the off-spring (Lund et al.,
Conclusion
Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) raised in gene-deficient mice have the unique ability to recognize epitopes conserved between species. Additional reactivity with species-specific epitopes provides a more diverse reactivity with the antigen than mAbs raised in wild-type mice. Furthermore, some studies have suggested cross-reacting mAbs to be superior inhibitors to mAbs only reacting with species-specific epitopes. Compared to small molecular inhibitors, the mAbs possess an amazing selectivity, have a long half-life in circulation (3–6 days; Pass et al.,
Statements
Acknowledgments
We thank all the partners in Microenvimet for fruitful and inspiring discussions and collaborations. We thank John Post for graphic assistance. Much of the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program FP7/2007–2011 under grant agreement n°201279.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
mouse monoclonal antibodies, extracellular proteolysis, collagen internalization, in vivo models, plasminogen activation
Citation
Lund IK, Rasch MG, Ingvarsen S, Pass J, Madsen DH, Engelholm LH, Behrendt N and Høyer-Hansen G (2012) Inhibitory Monoclonal Antibodies against Mouse Proteases Raised in Gene-Deficient Mice Block Proteolytic Functions in vivo. Front. Pharmacol. 3:122. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2012.00122
Received
03 April 2012
Accepted
07 June 2012
Published
28 June 2012
Volume
3 - 2012
Edited by
Agnès Noël, University of Liege, Belgium
Reviewed by
David Smadja, Paris Descartes University, France; Hervé Emonard, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Copyright
© 2012 Lund, Rasch, Ingvarsen, Pass, Madsen, Engelholm, Behrendt and Høyer-Hansen.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence: Gunilla Høyer-Hansen, The Finsen Laboratory, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen Biocenter, Ole Maaløes Vej 5, DK-2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark. e-mail: gunilla@finsenlab.dk
This article was submitted to Frontiers in Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs, a specialty of Frontiers in Pharmacology.
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