Leaving out sugar makes a better antibody drug

There’s a bit of sugar attached to your billion-dollar biotech product. Omitting the sugar (fucose) can help the product work better, Emory immunologists think.

Fucosylation is the red triangle on this diagram of the carbohydrate modifications of antibodies. Adapted from KTC Shade + RM Anthony, Antibodies (2013) and used through Creative Commons license.

Many drugs now used to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases are antibodies, originally derived from the immune system. A classic example of a “therapeutic antibody” is rituximab, a treatment for B cell malignancies that was FDA-approved in 1997. It has been responsible for billions of dollars in revenue for its maker, pharmaceutical giant Roche.

Researchers at Emory Vaccine Center previously observed that in a mouse model of chronic viral infection, a traffic jam inside the body limits how effective therapeutic antibodies can be. One of the ways these antibodies work is to grab onto malignant or inflammatory cells. One end of the antibody is supposed to bind the target cell, while another is a flag for other cells to eliminate the target cell. During a chronic viral infection, a mouse’s immune system is producing its own antibodies against the virus, which form complexes with viral proteins. These immune complexes prevented the injected antibodies from depleting their target cells.

In a recent Science Immunology paper, postdoc Andreas Wieland, Vaccine Center director Rafi Ahmed and colleagues showed that antibodies that lack fucosylation have an enhanced ability to get rid of their intended targets. Fucosylation is a type of sugar modification of the antibody. (It is the red triangle in the diagram, provided by Wieland.) When it is not present, then the “flag for removal” region of the antibody can interact more avidly with the Fc gamma receptor on immune cells. Thus, the introduced antibodies can compete more effectively with the antibodies being produced by the body already.

Posted on September 27, 2018 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology 1 Comment

Exotic immune systems are big business

What timing! Just when our feature on Max Cooper and lamprey immunology was scheduled for publication, the Japan Prize Foundation announced it would honor Cooper and his achievements.

Cooper was one of the founders of modern immunology. We connect his early work with his lab’s more recent focus on lampreys, primitive parasites with surprisingly sophisticated immune systems.

Molecules from animals with exotic immune systems can be big business, as Andrew Joseph from STAT News points out. Pharmaceutical giant Sanofi recently bought a company focused on nanobodies, originally derived from camels, llamas and alpacas, for $4.8 billion.

Lampreys’ variable lymphocyte receptors (VLRs) are their version of antibodies, even though they look quite different in molecular terms. Research on VLRs and their origins may seem impractical. However, Cooper’s team has shown their utility as diagnostic tools, and his colleagues have been weaponizing them, possibly for use in cancer immunotherapy.

CAR-T cells have attracted attention for dramatic elimination of certain types of leukemias from the body and also for harsh side effects and staggering costs; see this opinion piece by Georgia Tech’s Aaron Levine. Now many research teams are scheming about how to apply the approach to other types of cancers. The provocative idea is: replace the standard CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) warhead with a lamprey VLR.

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer, Immunology Leave a comment

Four hot projects at Emory in 2017

Once activated by cancer immunotherapy drugs, T cells still need fuel (CD28)

— Rafi Ahmed’s lab at Emory Vaccine Center. Also see T cell revival predicts lung cancer outcomes. At Thursday’s Winship symposium on cancer immunotherapy, Rafi said the name of the game is now combinations, with an especially good one being PD-1 inhibitors plus IL2.

Pilot study shows direct amygdala stimulation can enhance human memory

— Cory Inman, Joe Manns, Jon Willie. Effects being optimized, see SFN abstract.

Immune responses of five returning travelers infected by Zika virus

— Lilin Lai, Mark Mulligan. Covered here, Emory Hope Clinic and Baylor have data from more patients.

Frog slime kills flu virus

— Joshy Jacob’s lab at Emory Vaccine Center. A follow-up peptide with a name referencing Star Wars is coming.

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Quinn Eastman in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Update on SIV remission studies

Tab Ansari’s research at Emory/Yerkes on how an antibody treatment can push monkeys infected with SIV into remission was published in Science last year. At that time, Ansari told Lab Land about follow-up experiments to probe which immune cells are needed for this effect, which surprised many HIV/AIDS experts.

Ansari’s partner on the project, NIAID director Anthony Fauci, described the follow-up work in July at the International AIDS Society Conference in Paris. We thank Treatment Action Group’s Richard Jefferys for taking notes and posting a summary:

The approach that the researchers took was to deplete different types of immune cells in the animals controlling SIV viral load, then assess whether this led to an increase in viral replication. The experiments compared:

*Antibodies to the CD8 receptor alpha chain, which deplete CD8 T cells, natural killer T cells (NKTs) and natural killer (NK) cells

*Antibodies to the CD8 receptor beta chain, which deplete CD8 T cells

*Antibodies to CD20, which deplete B cells

According to Fauci’s slides, which are available online, there was a transient rebound in viral load with the CD8 alpha antibody and to a small degree with the CD8 beta. This suggests NKTs and NK cells are making a contribution to the observed control of SIV replication, but a role for CD8 T cells cannot be ruled out.

For comparison, a study from Guido Silvestri and colleagues at Yerkes published in 2016 found that treating SIV-infected monkeys with anti-CD8 antibodies, without stopping antiretroviral drugs, resulted in a rebound in virus levels. [They used ultrasensitive assays to detect the rebound.] However, the Yerkes team only used antibodies to the CD8 receptor alpha chain.

Posted on August 16, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Flu meeting at Emory next week

We are looking forward to the “Immunology and Evolution of Influenza” symposium next week (Thursday the 25th and Friday the 26th).

The symposium is taking place in Whitehead Auditorium in the Whitehead Biomedical Research Building. Talks from flu researchers based around the country, followed by a poster session, are on Thursday. From Emory, Jacob Kohlmeier and Rafi Ahmed are speaking Friday morning.

Organizers are asking for registration by Friday the 19th. The symposium is jointly sponsored by the Center for Inference and Dynamics of Infectious Diseases, funded by NIGMS, and the Center for Modeling Immunity to Influenza Infection, funded by NIAID.

Posted on May 18, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Cancer immunotherapy responses in the clinic: T cell revival as predictor

In lung cancer patients who were taking immunotherapy drugs, testing for revived immune cells in their blood partially predicted whether their tumors would shrink. The results were published online by PNAS on April 26.

This finding comes from a small study of 29 patients, who were being treated at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University with drugs blocking the PD-1 pathway, also known as checkpoint inhibitors.

The research findings propose a simple concept: if the immune system’s CD8 T cells, designed to recognize and attack tumors, show a response to checkpoint inhibitor drugs like nivolumab, pembrolizumab, or atezolizumab, that’s an optimistic signal. This area of exploration may also offer insights into why some patients are unresponsive to checkpoint inhibitor treatments and how these drugs could be combined with other therapies to boost response rates. If you are seeking expert medical attention, a reliable option could be to visit the walk-in clinic Manhattan Beach, where you can access high-quality care and benefit from advanced medical knowledge.

While looking for activated immune cells in the blood is not yet predictive enough for routine clinical use, such tests could provide timely information. Monitoring the immune response could potentially help oncologists and patients decide, within just a few weeks of starting immunotherapy drugs, whether to continue with the treatment or combine it with something else, says co-senior author Suresh Ramalingam, MD, Winship’s deputy director.

“We hypothesize that re-activated CD8 T cells first proliferate in the lymph nodes, then transition through the blood and migrate to the inflamed tissue,” says Rafi Ahmed, PhD, director of the Vaccine Center and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. “We believe some of the activated T cells in patients’ blood may be on their way to the tumor.”

The rest of the Emory Vaccine Center/Winship Cancer Institute press release is here. A few additional points: Read more

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer, Immunology Leave a comment

Zika immunology from returned travelers

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston last weekend, Emory Vaccine Center researcher Mark Mulligan presented some limited findings on immune responses in Zika-infected humans, who were returned US travelers or expatriates.

The results were intriguing, despite the small number of study participants: five, two of whom were pregnant. Detailed information has not been available about immune responses against Zika in humans, especially T cell responses.

Highlights from Mulligan’s abstract:

*All five seemed to have a hole in their immune systems – functional antiviral “killer” CD8 T cells were rare, despite activation of CD8 T cells in general and strong responses from other cell types.

*Cross-reactive immune responses, based on previous exposure to dengue and/or yellow fever vaccine, may have blunted Zika’s peak.

*”Even with prolonged maternal viremia, both pregnancies resulted in live births of apparently healthy babies.” Read more

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Zika virus blindfolds immune alarm cells

Important immune alarm cells — dendritic cells — are fighting Zika virus with an arm tied behind their backs, scientists from Emory Vaccine Center report.

Dendritic cells are “sentinel” cells that alert the rest of the immune system when they detect viral infection. When Zika virus infects them, it shuts down interferon signaling, one route for mustering the antiviral troops. However, another antiviral pathway called RIG-I-like receptor (RLR) signaling is left intact and could be a target for immunity-boosting therapies, the researchers say.

Mehul Suthar, PhD in the lab with graduate students Kendra Quicke and James Bowen

The findings were published on Feb. 2 in PLOS Pathogens.

Zika was known to disrupt interferon signaling, but Emory researchers have observed that it does so in ways that are distinct from other related flaviviruses, such as Dengue virus and West Nile virus. The findings give additional insight into how Zika virus is able to counter human immune defenses. Read more

Posted on February 3, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Access to HIV’s hideouts: T cells that take on their own

Police procedural television shows, such as Law + Order, have introduced many to the Internal Affairs Bureau: police officers that investigate other police officers. This group of unloved cops comes to mind in connection with the HIV/AIDS research published this week by Rama Amara’s lab at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Vaccine Center.

“Killer” antiviral T cells (red spots) can be found in germinal centers. The green areas are B cell follicles, which HIV researchers have identified as major reservoirs for the virus. Image courtesy of Rama Amara.

HIV infection is hard to get rid of for many reasons, but one is that the virus infects the cells in the immune system that act like police officers. The “helper” CD4 T cells that usually support immune responses become infected themselves. For the immune system to fight HIV effectively, the “killer” CD8 antiviral T cells would need to take on their own CD4 colleagues.

When someone is HIV-positive and is taking antiretroviral drugs, the virus is mostly suppressed but sticks around in a reservoir of inactive infected cells. Those cells hide out in germinal centers, specialized areas of lymph nodes, which most killer antiviral T cells don’t have access to. A 2015 Nature Medicine paper describes B cell follicles, which are part of germinal centers, as “sanctuaries” for persistent viral replication. (Imagine some elite police unit that has become corrupt, and uniformed cops can’t get into the places where the elite ones hang out. The analogy may be imperfect, but might help us visualize these cells.)

Amara’s lab has identified a group of antiviral T cells that do have the access code to germinal centers, a molecule called CXCR5. Knowing how to induce antiviral T cells displaying CXCR5 will be important for designing better therapeutic vaccines, as well as efforts to suppress HIV long-term, Amara says. The paper was published in PNAS this week. Read more

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Antiviral success makes some immune cells stickier

As they succeed in clearing a viral infection from the body, some virus-hunting T cells begin to stick better to their target cells, researchers from Emory Vaccine Center and Georgia Tech have discovered.

The increased affinity helps the T cells kill their target cells more efficiently, but it depends both on the immune cells’ anatomic location and the phase of the infection.

The results were published this week in the journal Immunity.

Arash Grakoui, PhD

After the peak of the infection, cells within the red pulp of the spleen or in the blood displayed a higher affinity for their targets than those within the white pulp. However, the white pulp T cells were more likely to become long-lasting memory T cells, critical for vaccines.

“These results provide a better understanding of how memory precursor populations are established and may have important implications for the development of efficacious vaccines,” the scientists write.

In the mouse model the researchers were using, the differences in affinity were only detectable a few days after the non-lethal LCMV viral infection peaks. How the differences were detected illustrates the role of serendipity in science, says senior author Arash Grakoui, PhD.

Typically, the scientists would have taken samples only at the peak (day 7 of the infection) and weeks later, when memory T cells had developed, Grakoui says. In January 2014, the weather intervened during one of these experiments. Snow disrupted transportation in the Atlanta area and prevented postdoctoral fellow Young-Jin Seo, PhD from taking samples from the infected mice until day 11, which is when the differences in affinity were apparent.

Seo and Grakoui collaborated with graduate student Prithiviraj Jothikumar and Cheng Zhu, PhD at Georgia Tech, using a technique Zhu’s laboratory has developed to measure the interactions between T cells and their target cells. Co-author Mehul Suthar, PhD performed gene expression analysis.

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

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