Novel hCD3e Mouse Models for Preclinical Pharmacology Study of Therapeutic Bispecific Antibody
CD3e is one of four subunits of the CD3 co-receptor, which plays an important role in the immune response, associating with the T cell receptor (TCR) to couple antigen recognition to intracellular signal transduction, leading to T cell activation. However, in many cases, we cannot directly evaluate the antibody candidates in mice because the monoclonal antibodies specific to human CD3 cannot cross-react to mouse endogenous CD3. In order to overcome the current model limitation, we have generated CD3e-extracellular domain KI mice for anti-human CD3e bispecific antibody in vivo efficacy evaluation. We have characterized our B-hCD3e mice with the following features:
- Mouse CD3e+ cells were detected in the wildtype C57BL/6 mice, while human CD3e+ cells were only detected in the homozygous B-hCD3e mice.
- T cell development was normal in B-hCD3e homozygous mice.
- T cell subtypes in the spleen, thymus, lymph nodes, and PBMC in B-hCD3e mice were similar and comparable to that in wildtype C57BL/6 mice.
- Normal in vitro T cell proliferation and cytokine production were found in anti-hCD3e antibody treated humanized B-hCD3e mice
- Mouse anti-PD-1 antibody can significantly repress the growth of MC38 tumor cells engrafted on B-hCD3e mice, suggesting that T cells in B-hCD3e mice are functionally normal
- Treatment of B-hCD3e mice with anti-human CD3e antibody OKT leads to T cell depletion, resulting in more aggressive tumor growth.
