U.S. patent application number 12/488343 was filed with the patent office on 2009-12-31 for production of anti-self antibodies from antibody segment repertoires and displayed on phage.
This patent application is currently assigned to MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL. Invention is credited to Andrew David Griffiths, Geoffrey Walter Grigg, Hendricus Renerus Jacobus Mattheus Hoogenboom, James David Marks, John McCafferty, Gregory Paul Winter.
Application Number | 20090325815 12/488343 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 27450782 |
Filed Date | 2009-12-31 |
United States Patent
Application |
20090325815 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Griffiths; Andrew David ; et
al. |
December 31, 2009 |
PRODUCTION OF ANTI-SELF ANTIBODIES FROM ANTIBODY SEGMENT
REPERTOIRES AND DISPLAYED ON PHAGE
Abstract
Methods are disclosed for the production of anti-self antibodies
and antibody fragments, being antibodies or fragments of a
particular species of mammal which bind self antigens of that
species. Methods comprise providing a library of replicable genetic
display packages (rgdps), such as filamentous phage, each rgdp
displaying at its surface member of a specific binding pair which
is an antibody or antibody fragment, and each rgdp containing
nucleic acid sequence derived from a species of mammal. The nucleic
acid sequence in each rgdp encodes a polypeptide chain which is a
component part of the sbp member displayed at the surface of that
rgdp. Anti-self antibody fragments are selected by binding with a
self antigen from said species of mammal. The displayed antibody
fragments may be scFv, Fd, Fab or any other fragment which has the
capability of binding antigen. Nucleic acid libraries used may be
derived from rearranged V-gene sequences of unimmunised mammal.
Synthetic or artificial libraries are described and shown to be
useful.
Inventors: |
Griffiths; Andrew David;
(Cambridge, GB) ; Hoogenboom; Hendricus Renerus Jacobus
Mattheus; (Cambridge, GB) ; Marks; James David;
(Kensington, CA) ; McCafferty; John; (Babraham,
GB) ; Winter; Gregory Paul; (Cambridge, GB) ;
Grigg; Geoffrey Walter; (Linley Point, AU) |
Correspondence
Address: |
HOWREY LLP - East
C/O IP DOCKETING DEPARTMENT, 2941 FAIRVIEW PARK DR, SUITE 200
FALLS CHURCH
VA
22042-2924
US
|
Assignee: |
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
London
GB
CAMBRIDGE ANTIBODY TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
Cambridge
GB
|
Family ID: |
27450782 |
Appl. No.: |
12/488343 |
Filed: |
June 19, 2009 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
|
|
|
|
|
|
Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
11625769 |
Jan 22, 2007 |
|
|
|
12488343 |
|
|
|
|
10326495 |
Dec 19, 2002 |
7195866 |
|
|
11625769 |
|
|
|
|
09197224 |
Nov 20, 1998 |
6521404 |
|
|
10326495 |
|
|
|
|
08244597 |
Oct 26, 1994 |
5885793 |
|
|
PCT/GB92/02240 |
Dec 2, 1992 |
|
|
|
09197224 |
|
|
|
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
506/9 |
Current CPC
Class: |
C07K 16/462 20130101;
C07K 2317/55 20130101; C40B 40/02 20130101; C07K 16/2863 20130101;
C07K 16/468 20130101; C07K 16/40 20130101; C07K 2319/735 20130101;
C07K 16/2812 20130101; C07K 2319/02 20130101; C07K 16/18 20130101;
C07K 16/005 20130101; C07K 16/22 20130101; C07K 2319/41 20130101;
C12N 15/1037 20130101; C07K 16/44 20130101; B01J 2219/00718
20130101; C07K 16/2866 20130101; C12N 15/62 20130101; C07K 16/241
20130101; C07K 16/3007 20130101; C07K 16/4241 20130101; C07K
2317/21 20130101; C07K 2317/24 20130101; C07K 2317/92 20130101;
C07K 2319/00 20130101; C07K 16/34 20130101; C07K 16/3092 20130101;
C07K 16/4208 20130101; C07K 16/26 20130101; Y10S 530/867 20130101;
C07K 16/28 20130101; C07K 2317/622 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
506/9 |
International
Class: |
C40B 30/04 20060101
C40B030/04 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Dec 2, 1991 |
GB |
9125579.4 |
Dec 2, 1991 |
GB |
9125582.8 |
Mar 24, 1992 |
GB |
9206318.9 |
Sep 23, 1992 |
GB |
9206372.6 |
Sep 23, 1992 |
GB |
PCT/GB92/01755 |
Claims
1. A method of obtaining a member of a specific binding pair (sbp
member), the sbp member being an antibody or antibody fragment and
having an antigen binding site with binding specificity for an
antigen which is a self antigen of a species of mammal, the method
comprising: (a) providing a library of replicable genetic display
packages (rgdps), each rgdp displaying at its surface an sbp
member, and each rgdp containing nucleic acid with sequence derived
from said species of mammal and encoding a polypeptide chain which
is a component part of the sbp member displayed at the surface of
that rgdp; (b) selecting, by binding with said self antigen, one or
more sbp members with binding specificity for said self
antigen.
2. A method according to claim 1 wherein each said sbp member
displayed at the surface of an rgdp is an antibody fragment
comprising a VH domain and a VL domain.
3. A method according to claim 2 wherein each said sbp member
displayed at the surface of an rgdp is an scFv antibody
fragment.
4. A method according to claim 2 wherein each said sbp member
displayed at the surface of an rgdp is a Fab antibody fragment.
5. A method according to claim 1 wherein the nucleic acid is
derived from rearranged V genes of an unimmunised mammal.
6. A method according to claim 1 wherein the nucleic acid is
derived from a library prepared by artificial or synthetic
recombination of V gene sequences.
7. A method according to claim 6 wherein the library is derived
from germ line V-gene sequences.
8. A method according to claim 1 wherein said species of mammal is
human.
9. A method according to claim 1 wherein sbp members selected in
(b) displayed at the surface of rgdps are selected or screened to
provide an individual rgdp displaying an sbp member or a mixed
population of said rgdps, with each rgdp containing nucleic acid
encoding the sbp member or a polypeptide chain thereof which is
displayed at its surface.
10. A method according to claim 9 wherein nucleic acid which
encodes a selected or screened sbp member and which is derived from
an rgdp which displays at its surface a selected or screened sbp
member is used to express an sbp member or a fragment or derivative
thereof in a recombinant host organism.
11. A method according to claim 10 wherein nucleic acid from one or
more rgdps is taken and used to provide encoding nucleic acid in a
further method to obtain an individual sbp member or a mixed
population of sbp members, or encoding nucleic acid therefor.
12. A method according to claim 10 wherein the expression end
product is modified to produce a derivative thereof.
13. A method according to claim 10 wherein the expression end
product or derivative thereof is used to prepare a therapeutic or
prophylactic medicament or a diagnostic product.
Description
[0001] This is a continuation of co-pending U.S. application Ser.
No. 11/625,769 filed Jan. 22, 2007 which is a continuation of U.S.
application Ser. No. 10/326,495 filed Dec. 19, 2002, now U.S. Pat.
No. 7,195,866 which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.
09/197,224, filed Nov. 20, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,521,404, which
is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/244,597, filed
Oct. 26, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,885,793, which in turn is a U.S.
National phase of PCT/GB92/02240, filed Dec. 2, 1992. Each of the
foregoing applications is hereby incorporated by reference
herein.
[0002] This invention relates to the isolation of antibody
molecules directed against self antigens, e.g. human antibodies
directed against human self antigens. Phage display technology for
selection of antibody molecules was described-in WO92/01047,
PCT/GB92/00883, PCT/GB92/01755 and GB9206372.6. The applicants have
realised that antibodies directed against self antigens can be
isolated using phage display technology.
[0003] Human antiself antibodies are of particular value for in
vivo therapeutic and diagnostic purposes, since they avoid the
problems arising from the antigenicity of foreign, e.g. mouse
antibodies. The most useful human antibodies for therapy are those
directed against cell surface molecules, such as receptors,
adhesins and integrins, and those directed against circulating
biological effector molecules, such as hormones, growth factors and
cytokines. It has been extremely difficult to obtain human
antibodies against such self antigens. This invention provides a
powerful way of obtaining such antibodies.
[0004] It is a demanding task to isolate an antibody fragment with
specificity against self antigen. Animals do not normally produce
antibodies to self antigens, a phenomenon called tolerance (G. J.
Nossal Science 245 147-153, 1989). Autoimmune diseases may result
from a breakdown in tolerance. In general, vaccination with a self
antigen does not result in production of circulating antibodies. It
is therefore difficult to raise antibodies to self antigens,
particularly in humans. It is possible to raise antibodies that
recognise human antigens in an animal such as a mouse, especially
if the human antigen is not too closely related to any equivalent
in the animal. If a human antibody is then required it is necessary
to `humanise` the antibody, e.g. by CDR grafting (patent
GB2188638B).
[0005] Phage antibody technology as described in (WO92/01047)
offers the ability to isolate such human antibodies directly in
this application, we demonstrate for the first time that antibodies
against self-antigens can be isolated from phage libraries derived
from, for example, nonimmunised sources and from libraries prepared
by synthetic recombination of V-gene sequences, preferably
recombination of VH with, DH and JH, and VL with JL sequences.
These antibodies are specific for their antigen. This application
shows that single libraries derived in this manner can act as a
source of both foreign and self antigens and opens up the prospect
of a large, universal library to isolate antibodies to any
antigen.
[0006] It was disclosed in patent application WO92/01047 that
antibody fragments can be displayed on the surface of bacteriophage
and that they will bind antigen. Antibody fragments can be directly
selected using this characteristic. This ability to isolate
antibody fragments (Fab, Fv, scFv and VH) using their display on
the surface of filamentous bacteriophage has opened up the prospect
of the isolation of antibody specificities (i.e. antibodies
directed against a particular antigen) that were difficult or
impossible to isolate previously. In particular WO92/01047
demonstrates that antibody specificities can be isolated from a
human who has not been specifically immunised (`unimmunised`), even
specificities for antigens such as 2-phenyl-5-oxazolone to which
humans will not normally be exposed.
[0007] In embodiments of this invention, natural or synthetic
antibody repertoires derived from a species of mammal, such as
human, mouse, rat, sheep, pig, goat, horse or other, are displayed
on the surface of a replicable genetic display package (rgdp) and
the binding specificity for self is selected by binding to self
antigen. In this process, the V gene repertoires are derived from V
genes rearranged in vitro or in vivo and or by mutation of (a)
rearranged V gene(s). A key feature of the V gene repertoires is
that they are extremely diverse in sequence, usually in excess of
10.sup.6 different members. Indeed it is possible that a
sufficiently large library may provide a source of specificities
directed against any self antigen. The V-gene repertoires are
cloned into the rgdp (for example a filamentous phage vector) such
that antibody repertoires are displayed on the surface of the rgdp.
The rgdps encoding rare antibody specificities binding to antiself,
may be selected by virtue of binding to the self antigen. The
antibody repertoires may be cloned in a single replicon or a dual
replicon format as described in WO92/01047 and PCT/GB92/00883.
[0008] The V genes may be cloned into the genetic material of the
rgdp, and expressed as single domains, for example single heavy
chain variable domains, so called single domain ligands or "dAbs"
(see WO90/01544), or as associated antibody heavy and light chain
variable domains.
[0009] The two domains could be displayed as separate polypeptide
chains (linked as in Fab fragments through non-covalent association
of domains and/or disulphide bonds), or as part of the same chain
(single chain Fv fragments where the two domains are contained
within the same polypeptide chain).
[0010] In WO92/01047 and examples 1 to 8 of this application we
have used fusion of antibody fragments to gene 3 protein of
filamentous bacteriophage for display and selection of antibody
fragments. An alternative approach would be to fuse antibody
fragments to gene 8 protein or other surface molecules of
filamentous bacteriophage.
[0011] Isolation of human antibodies directed against human
antigens is a demanding task. There are only a limited number of
human antigens against which circulating human antibodies are
naturally found. Antibodies are present directed against non-self
antigens of human origin. Antibodies directed against human blood
group B have been isolated from a phage display library prepared
from subjects of blood group O (J. D. Marks et al, J. Mol. Biol.
222 581-597, 1991), which recognise the blood group B antigen as
foreign.
[0012] This invention is concerned with a general method for the
isolation of antibodies directed against self antigens which are
specific for the antigen concerned. Many patients show significant
concentrations of circulating autoantibodies. It is estimated that
10 to 30% of B lymphocytes in normal, healthy individuals are
engaged in making autoantibodies (I. R. Cohen and A. Cooke Immunol.
Today 7 363-364, 1986). However, the `natural autoantibodies`
produced do not lend themselves to therapeutic use as they are
often IgM, low affinity and polyreactive (P. Casali and A. L.
Notkins Ann. Rev. Immunol. 7 515-531, 1989; S. Avrameas Immunol.
Today 12 154-159). An immune response against self can arise in
autoimmune disease or after infections and a few monoclonal
antibodies directed against self antigens have been isolated from
patients with autoimmune disease (K. James & G. T. Bell J.
Immunol. Methods 100 5-40, 1987). These autoantibodies are
frequently specific, but may bind to only a limited range of
epitopes on the antigen (M. Bouanani et al Arthritis Rheum. 34
1585-1593, 1991).
[0013] The preparation of V gene libraries derived from the mRNA of
plasma cells secreting IgG (or IgM) antibody may thus lead to the
isolation of antibody fragments derived from autoantibodies. For
instance, anti-self antibodies might be isolated from patients with
autoimmune diseases, for example anti-acetylcholine receptor
antibodies would be expected to be isolated from antibody
repertoires made from the IgG mRNA of myasthenia gravis patients.
For example, an antibody fragment specific for human thyroid
peroxidase has been isolated from a bacteriophage lambda library
from a patient with thyroid autoimmune disease (S. Portolano et al
Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 179 372-377, 1991). This however
required extensive screening of 200,000 plaques to obtain one
clone. In addition, this library was derived from thyroid tissue, a
procedure not readily applicable in most instances.
[0014] In contrast, the power of selection available using the
phage system, demonstrated in WO92/01047 allows the ready isolation
of autoantibodies from the IgM mRNA of peripheral blood lymphocytes
of a donor without disease. We show in example 2 that antibodies
binding to human thyroglobulin (which can be found in the sera of
people with or without symptomatic autoimmune disease), can be
isolated from phage repertoires prepared from unimmunised humans.
One would not expect necessarily to be able to obtain antibodies to
human thyroglobulin by immunising a human with human thyroglobulin,
notwithstanding the presence of thyroglobulin autoantibodies in
many people. Autoantibodies against thyroglobulin in normal sera
have been reported often to have a high degree of polyreactivity
(S. Avrameas, 1991 supra). In contrast, those which are isolated
using a method according to the present invention involving phage
antibody technology, see example 2 for instance, are specific for
thyroglobulin.
[0015] In this application, we also demonstrate that even
antibodies against human tumour necrosis factor-.alpha. can be
isolated as described in example 1 from the same library as the
antibodies directed against thyroglobulin. Many self antigens do
not have detectable associated circulating autoantibodies. Further,
example 3 shows the isolation of antibodies against the self
antigens mucin, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CD4, antibodies
to which have not been reported in normal sera. Moreover, these
antibodies are specific, whereas there is often a high degree of
polyreactivity in natural autoantibodies which can sometimes be
found. The vast majority of self antigens do not have detectable
associated circulating autoantibodies. Thus the isolation of
antiself antibodies as described in this invention opens the
prospect of the direct isolation of human antibodies binding to
human antigens for a number of purposes such as antibodies which
bind to circulating hormones to block, modify or potentiate their
action or antibodies that bind to cell surface antigen for imaging
or killing for example of cancer cells.
[0016] The origin of the V genes that contribute to anti-self
antibodies isolated from phage display libraries is not clear.
Tolerance to self antigens by the immune system (preventing the
generation of antibodies directed against them) is mediated by
either clonal deletion or functional inactivation (anergy) of
self-reactive B lymphocytes (D. A. Nemazee & K. Burki Nature
337 562-566, 1989; C. C. Goodnow et al., Nature 334 676-682, 1988;
S. B. Hartley et al., Nature 353 765-769, 1991; D. M. Russell et
al., Nature 354 308-311, 1991). In either case little circulating
anti-self antibody is detectable for most antigens. However, in the
case of anergy, functionally inactivated self-reactive cells from
the B cell lineage persist in peripheral lymphoid organs leading to
B cells in circulation. These rare lymphocytes with anti-self
specificity may provide heavy or light chain partners (or even
both) for phage antibodies with anti-self specificities.
Alternatively, such anti-self specificities may arise from the
combination in the library of a VH domain with a VL domain to give
a specificity that is normally deleted if it occurs in nature. For
this reason, combinatorial libraries and `chain-shuffled` libraries
such as described in patent application WO92/01047 may be a
particularly rich source of anti-self antibodies. A selection
procedure of great power, such as that provided by phage
antibodies, is required to obtain such rare anti-self
antibodies.
[0017] The degree of somatic mutation observed in antiself antibody
fragments isolated by phage technology in this application
indicates that some have germ line sequences and have therefore
arisen from virgin B cells. Other antibodies isolated by phage
antibody technology in this application show somatic hypermutation
indicating that the V genes have been stimulated by antigen, either
a foreign cross reactive antigen or other foreign antigens. In both
cases the antibody fragments isolated using phage technology will
usually be a combination of VH and VL domains not originally
present in the B lymphocytes and the power of phage technology, as
described in this application enables their isolation.
[0018] According to the present invention there is provided a
method of obtaining a member of a specific binding pair (sbp
member), which sbp member has an antigen binding site with binding
specificity for an antigen which is a self antigen of a species of
mammal, the method comprising: [0019] (a) providing a library of
replicable genetic display packages (rgdps), each rgdp displaying
at its surface an sbp member, and each rgdp containing nucleic acid
with sequence derived from said species of mammal and encoding a
polypeptide chain which is a component part of the sbp member
displayed at the surface of that rgdp; [0020] (b) selecting, by
binding with said self antigen, one or more sbp members with
binding specificity for said self antigen.
[0021] The polypeptide component part encoded by the nucleic acid
in each rgdp may be a VH or VL domain of an antibody, or any part
of an antibody which, either alone or in combination with one or
more other component parts, forms an antibody fragment which is
capable of binding an antigen. Examples of polypeptide chains which
may be used as component parts of an sbp member as described above
therefore include, in addition to VH and VL domains,
V.sub.LC.sub.L, V.sub.HC.sub.H1, scFv fragments, Fab fragments and
so on.
[0022] Each said sbp member displayed at the surface of an rgdp may
be an antibody fragment comprising a V.sub.H domain and a V.sub.L
domain.
[0023] Each antibody fragment may be a scFv fragment, a Fab
fragment, a Fv fragment consisting of the V.sub.L and V.sub.H
domain of a single arm of an antibody, a single domain binding
ligand consisting essentially of or comprising a heavy-chain
variable domain (Fd), or any other fragment which has the
capability of binding an epitope or antigen.
[0024] The step of providing a library of rgdps may comprise:
[0025] combining (i) a first polypeptide chain component part of an
sbp member fused to a component of a rgdp which thereby displays
said first polypeptide chain component part or population thereof
at the surface of rgdps on expression in a recombinant host cell
organism, or a population of such a first polypeptide chain
component part fused to a said component of a rgdp, with (ii) a
second polypeptide chain component part of an sbp member or a
population of such a second polypeptide chain component part, to
form a library of sbp members displayed at the surface of rgdps;
[0026] at least one of said first or second polypeptide chain
component part or populations thereof being encoded by nucleic acid
which is capable of being packaged using said component of an
rgdp.
[0027] The step of providing a library of rgdp may comprise: [0028]
expressing in a recombinant host organism a first polypeptide chain
component part of an sbp member or a population of such a first
polypeptide chain component part, fused to a component of an rgdp
which thereby displays said polypeptide chain component part at the
surface of rgdps; [0029] combining said first polypeptide chain
component part or population with a second polypeptide chain
component part of an sbp member or a population of such a second
polypeptide chain component part, to form a library of rgdps each
displaying an sbp member at its surface, at least one of said
polypeptide chain component parts being expressed from nucleic acid
which is capable of being packaged using said component of an
rgdp.
[0030] Where the sbp member is an Fab fragment the first and second
polypeptide chain component part may be a polypeptide consisting of
a V.sub.L and a C.sub.L domain, and the second polypeptide chain
component part a polypeptide consisting of a V.sub.H and a C.sub.H1
domain.
[0031] The combining of first and second polypeptide chain
component parts or populations thereof may be at the nucleic acid
level with expression vectors each having introduced therein a
sequence encoding a first component part and a sequence encoding a
sequence component part. On the other hand, the combining may be at
the polypeptide level with first component parts not being
expressed from the same vectors as second component parts. Indeed,
one or other of the first and second component parts may be
provided as a soluble library. Details of various formats which may
be employed are given in WO92/01047 and PCT/GB92/00883.
[0032] The step of providing a library may comprise: [0033]
combining (i) nucleic acid which encodes a first polypeptide chain
component of an sbp member fused to a component of a rgdp or a
population of such a first polypeptide chain component part fused
to a component of a rgdp, with (ii) nucleic acid encoding a second
polypeptide chain component part of an sbp member or a population
thereof, to form a library of nucleic acid, nucleic acid of said
library being capable of being packaged using said component of an
rgdp; [0034] expressing in a recombinant host organism said first
polypeptide chain component part fused to a component of a rgdp or
population thereof and said second polypeptide chain component part
of an sbp member or a population thereof, to produce a library of
rgdps each displaying at its surface an sbp member and containing
nucleic acid encoding a first and a second polypeptide chain
component part of the sbp member displayed at its surface. [0035]
Readers are urged to consult WO92/01047, in particular, if further
details of any method described herein are desired.
[0036] In one embodiment of the present invention both first and
second polypeptide chain component parts or populations thereof are
expressed from nucleic acid capable of being packaged using said
component of an rgdp. This might be when the component parts
together form a Fab fragment or, more usually, when each said sbp
member displayed at the surface of an rgdp is an scFv antibody
fragment.
[0037] In one embodiment, each said second polypeptide chain
component part or population thereof may be expressed from nucleic
acid separate from nucleic acid from which said first polypeptide
chain component part or population thereof is expressed. The
nucleic acid encoding the first polypeptide chain component part
may be on the same expression vector as the nucleic acid encoding
the second polypeptide chain component part, but separate from it
so that, for example, Fab fragments are produced. Alternatively,
the nucleic acid encoding the first polypeptide chain component
part may be on a different expression vector from the nucleic acid
which encodes a second polypeptide chain component part. Where a
first and second polypeptide chain component part are both encoded
on the same expression vector then they may be expressed as scFv
fragments, where a VH domain is joined to a VL domain by a
polypeptide linker, so that each scFv is a single polypeptide
chain.
[0038] Each sbp member displayed at the surface of an rgdp is an
Fab antibody fragment.
[0039] The nucleic acid may be derived from, e.g. rearranged V
genes of, an unimmunised mammal, for example a mouse, rat, rabbit,
sheep, pig, horse, goat, dog or human. Preferably the species of
mammal is human, since it is most difficult to obtain antibodies
which recognise (i.e. bind specifically) human self antigens.
[0040] The nucleic acid may be derived from a library prepared by
artificial or synthetic recombination of V-gene segments, which may
be germ-line V-gene sequences. The library may be totally
synthetic.
[0041] Sbp members selected in (b) displayed at the surface of
rgdps may be selected or screened to provide an individual sbp
member or a mixed population of said sbp members associated in
their respective rgdps with nucleic acid encoding said sbp member
or a polypeptide chain thereof. Rgdp phage displaying sbp members
selected in (b) may be grown to increase their numbers before any
subsequent further selection or screening. Nucleic acid which
encodes a selected or screened sbp member and which is derived from
an rgdp which displays at its surface a selected or screened sbp
member may be used to express an sbp member or a fragment of
derivative thereof in a recombinant host organism.
[0042] The present invention encompasses any method wherein nucleic
acid from one or more rgdps selected from the library by binding
with a self antigen is taken and used to provide encoding nucleic
acid in a further method (according to any embodiment of the
present invention or not) to obtain an individual sbp member or a
mixed population of sbp members, or encoding nucleic acid
therefor.
[0043] The expression end product, selected sbp member, may be
modified to produce a derivative thereof.
[0044] The expression end product or derivative thereof may be used
to prepare a therapeutic or prophylactic medicament or a diagnostic
product.
[0045] The present invention also encompasses antibody fragments,
derivatives thereof, including whole antibodies and fusions with
enzymes, obtained using any method described herein according to
the present invention.
[0046] According to an aspect of the present invention there is
provided use, in any method according to embodiment of the present
invention described herein, of a kit comprising a library of
vectors each comprising nucleic acid which is capable of being
packaged in rgdps and which encodes a polypeptide chain component
part of an antibody for display at the surface of rgdps.
[0047] There is also provided by the present invention use, in any
method according to any embodiment of the present invention
described herein, of a kit comprising a library of rgdps each
containing nucleic acid encoding at least one polypeptide chain
component part of an antibody.
[0048] The present invention provides generally a method for
producing a replicable genetic display package (rgdps) or
population of such rgdps, which method comprises the steps of:
[0049] (a) inserting a nucleotide sequence encoding a binding
molecule which is a member of a specific binding pair and an
anti-self antibody, within a viral genome;
[0050] (b) culturing the virus containing said nucleotide sequence
so that said binding molecule is expressed and displayed by the
virus at its surface.
[0051] The present invention also provides a method for selecting a
rgdp specific for a particular self-antigen epitope which comprises
producing a population of such rgdps and the additional step of
selecting for said binding molecule which is an anti-self antibody
by contacting the population with said epitope so that individual
rgdps with the desired specificity may bind to said epitope. The
method may comprise one or more of the additional steps of: (i)
separating any bound rgdps from the epitope; (ii) recovering any
separated rgdps and (iii) using the inserted nucleotide sequences
from any separated rgdps in a recombinant system to produce the
binding molecule separate from the virus. The selection step may
isolate the nucleotide sequence encoding the binding molecule of
desired specificity, by virtue of said binding molecule being
expressed in association with the surface of the virus in which
said encoding nucleic acid is contained.
[0052] The present invention also provides a method of producing a
multimeric member of a specific binding pair (sbp) which is an
anti-self antibody, which method comprises: [0053] expressing in a
recombinant host organism a first polypeptide chain of said sbp
member or a genetically diverse population of said sbp member fused
to a component of a secreted replicable genetic display package
(rgdp) which thereby displays said polypeptide at the surface of
the package, and expressing in a recombinant host organism a second
polypeptide chain of said multimer and causing or allowing the
polypeptide chains come together to form said multimer as part of
said rgdp at least one of said polypeptide chains being expressed
from nucleic acid that is capable of being packaged using said
component therefor, whereby the genetic material of each said rgdp
encodes a said polypeptide chain.
[0054] Both said chains may be expressed in the same host
organism.
[0055] The first and second chains of said multimer may be
expressed as separate chains from a single vector containing their
respective nucleic acid.
[0056] At least one of said polypeptide chains (or polypeptide
chain component parts) may be expressed from a phage vector.
[0057] At least one of said polypeptide chains may be expressed
from a phagemid vector, the method including using a helper phage,
or a plasmid expressing complementing phage genes, to help package
said phagemid genome, and said component of the rgdp is a capsid
protein therefor. The capsid protein may be absent, defective or
conditionally defective in the helper phage.
[0058] The method may comprise introducing a vector capable of
expressing said first polypeptide chain, into a host organism which
expresses said second polypeptide chain in free form, or
introducing a vector capable of expressing said second polypeptide
in free form into a host organism which expresses said first
polypeptide chain.
[0059] Each of the polypeptide chain may be expressed from nucleic
acid which is capable of being packaged as a rgdp using said
component fusion product, whereby encoding nucleic acid for both
said polypeptide chains are packaged in respective rgdps.
[0060] The fusions may be expressed in the absence of the rgdp
display component, perhaps capsid, expressed in wild-type form.
[0061] The capsid protein may be absent, defective or conditionally
defective in the helper phage.
[0062] The host cell may be a mutator strain which introduces
genetic diversity into the sbp member nucleic acid.
[0063] The rgdp may be a bacteriophage, the host a bacterium, and
said component of the rgdp a capsid protein for the bacterophage.
The phage may be a filamentous phage. The phage may be selected
from the class I phages fd, M13, f1, If1, lke, ZJ/Z, Ff and the
class II phages X5, Pf1 and Pf3. The phage may be fd or a
derivative of fd. The derivative may be tetracycline resistant. The
said sbp member or polypeptide chain thereof may be expressed as a
fusion with the gene III capsid protein of phage fd or its
counterpart in another filamentous phage. The sbp member or
polypeptide chain thereof may be inserted in the N-terminal region
of the mature capsid protein downstream of a secretory leader
peptide. The sequence may be inserted after amino acid+1 of the
mature protein. The site for insertion may be flanked by short
sequences corresponding to sequences which occur at each end of the
nucleic acid to be inserted.
[0064] The host may be E. coli.
[0065] Nucleic acid encoding an sbp member polypeptide may be
linked downstream to a viral capsid protein through a suppressible
translational stop codon, so that under conditions where the stop
is suppressed fusion proteins are produced comprising sbp member
polypeptide and viral capsid protein, while under non-suppressing
conditions free form sbp member polypeptides are produced.
[0066] Selection systems and assay formats are discussed elsewhere
in this text. In these systems and formats, the gene sequence
encoding the binding molecule (eg. the antibody) of desired
specificity is separated from a general population of rgdps having
a range of specifies, by the fact of its binding to a specific
target (eg the antigen or epitope). Thus the rgdps formed by said
expression may be selected or screened to provide an individual sbp
member or a selected mixed population of said sbp members
associated in their respective rgdps with nucleic acid encoding
said sbp member or a polypeptide chain thereof. The rgdps may be
selected by affinity with a member complementary to said sbp
member.
[0067] Any rgdps bound to said second member may be recovered by
washing with an eluant. The washing conditions may be varied in
order to obtain rgdps with different binding affinities for said
epitope. Alternatively, to obtain eg high affinity rgdps, the
complementary member (eg an epitope) may be presented to the
population of rgdps (eg pAbs) already bound to a binding member in
which case pAbs with a higher affinity for the epitope will
displace the already bound binding member. Thus the eluant may
contain a molecule which competes with said rgdp for binding to the
complementary sbp member. The rgdp may be applied to said
complementary sbp member in the presence of a molecule which
competes with said package for binding to said complementary sbp
member. Nucleic acid derived from a selected or screened rgdp may
be used to express said sbp member or a fragment or derivative
thereof in a recombinant host organism. Nucleic acid from one or
more rgdps may be taken and used to provide encoding nucleic acid
in a further said method to obtain an individual sbp member or a
mixed population of sbp members, or encoding nucleic acid therefor.
The expression end product may be modified to produce a derivative
thereof.
[0068] A preferred source for the generation of diverse libraries
from unimmunised humans is IgM mRNA. It is was found in example 43
of WO92/01047 that antibody fragments directed against turkey egg
lysozyme and 2-phenyl-5-oxazolone were much more readily isolated
from a phage library derived from the IgM mRNA from unimmunised
human donors, than from one prepared from IgG mRNA. Furthermore, no
2-phenyl-5-oxazolone binding antibody fragments could be isolated
from a library of 2000000 phage antibody clones prepared from
IgGmRNA of unimmunised mice (T. Clackson et al, Nature 352 624-628,
1991). Examples 1 to 3 of this application show the isolation of
antibodies specific for self antigen from the IgM library. Although
in these samples, antiself specificities have been selected as
single chain Fv fragments in a single replicon format, antibody
specificities could be selected as Fab fragments in a single
replicon format or in a dual combinatorial, dual replicon format
(Hoogenboom et al, 1991 supra) for instance using recombination
with the loxP system (PCT/GB92/00883).
[0069] Phage libraries may be prepared which are enriched for
antibodies directed against self. B lymphocytes express surface IgM
and surface IgD before stimulation with antigen but express little
soluble IgM or IgD. These unstimulated cells are more likely to
contain antibody genes with anti-self specificities. In contrast,
terminally differentiated plasma cells which secrete soluble
antibodies express little surface immunoglobulin. The preparation
of cDNA for phage library preparation using primers which are
specific for surface IgM or surface IgD will produce a repertoire
of antibody genes enriched for the naive, unselected genes encoding
V domains. In B lymphocytes which have been functionally silenced
by exposure to self there are greatly reduced levels of surface IgM
but unchanged levels of surface IgD (C. C. Goodnow et al. supra).
Hence, a primer specific for surface IgD may be particularly
suitable for isolation of anti-self antibodies.
[0070] However, as demonstrated in this application, IgM mRNA from
unselected peripheral blood lymphocytes is one preferred source of
V genes for antiself specificities. Other sources of such anti-self
antibodies may be fetal mRNA or cord blood mRNA (P. M. Lydyard et
al Scand J Immunol 31 33-43, 1990).
[0071] There is the potential for making repertoires for phage
display using the original combination of VH and VL domains by the
use of PCR and linkage of the genes encoding them within cells
expressing these domains. The principle of `In cell PCR`, where the
original VH/VL pairing is maintained, was demonstrated in
PCT/GB92/01483 and described in Embleton et al in Nucleic Acids
Res., 20, 3831-3837, 1992. This may be particularly useful if
lymphocytes can be selected at a stage before the deletion of
clones expressing anti-self antibodies.
[0072] In one embodiment of this invention, V gene sequences, or
even libraries prepared by the synthetic recombination of V, D and
J segments may be used. These act as a rich source of anti-self
antibodies. In examples 5 to 7, we demonstrate that anti-self
specificities against TNF, human anti-rhesus D antibody (OAK3) and
human thyroglobulin can be isolated from a phage antibody library
prepared by the synthetic joining of V, D and J segments. The use
of germ line V genes for this purpose, as shown in examples 5 to 7,
should be valuable for the isolation of anti-self antibodies as
there is some evidence that B lymphocytes directed against soluble
self antigens are functionally silenced and those directed against
multivalent membrane bound self antigen are eliminated (S. B.
Hartley et al., supra; D. M. Russell et al., supra). Thus, the use
of synthetic libraries made by VH, DH, JH or VK, JK or VL, JL,
recombination in vitro or its equivalent may be particularly
advantageous for isolation of antibodies directed against
multivalent membrane bound self antigens.
[0073] In examples 5 to 7 we have used synthetic VH CDR3 segments
incorporating sequences of random bases at the V-D-J joining region
and linked them to germ line VH gene segments. Other strategies may
be used such as making each of the CDR loops of random sequence or
making the CDR loops of known canonical structures (C. Chothia et
al, Nature 342 877-893, 1989) and incorporating random sequence
elements. The germ line nature of the V and J segments could be
altered by incorporation of specific or random alterations to the
sequence or by using somatically mutated V gene regions. The
strategy used in examples 5 to 7 has the advantage that the loop
structures of the V gene segments form only a limited number of
distinct folds and combinations of folds (C. Chothia et al J. Mol.
Biol. 227 779-817, 1992) and have presumably evolved for stability
and to create a distribution and range of binding sites well suited
to match the structure of antigens. Moreover, the framework regions
and first two hypervariable loops of both heavy and light chains of
the synthetic human antibodies are likely to be identical in many
different individuals. Such synthetic human antibodies could be
less immunogenic than entirely artificial structures.
[0074] A further but less preferred alternative to the above
natural and synthetic phage display libraries would be to prepare
random mutagenesis libraries displayed on phage, derived from one
or a few human antibody molecules and selecting anti-self antigen
specificities from these.
Selection
[0075] Individual rgdps eg pAbs expressing the desired specificity
for an antigen, can be isolated from a library using the
conventional screening techniques (e.g. as described in Harlow, E.,
and Lane, D., 1988, supra Gherardi, E et al. 1990. J. Immunol.
meth. 126 p 61-68).
[0076] The applicants have also devised selection techniques that
are practicable because of the unique properties of rgdps. The
general outline of some screening procedures is illustrated in FIG.
5 using pAbs as an example type of rgdp.
[0077] The population/library of pAbs to be screened could be
generated from immunised or other animals; or be created in vitro
by mutagenising pre-existing phage antibodies (using techniques
well-known in the art such as oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis
(Sambrook, J., et al., 1989 Molecular Cloning a Laboratory Manual,
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press) but are preferably derived
from unimmunised humans or artificial recombination of human V
segments, as described elsewhere. This population can be screened
in one or more of the formats described below with reference to
FIG. 5, to derive those individual pAbs whose antigen binding
properties are different from sample c.
Binding Elution
[0078] FIG. 5(i) shows antigen (ag) bound to a solid surface (s)
the solid surface (s) may be provided by a petri dish,
chromatography beads, magnetic beads and the like. The
population/library of pAbs is then passed over the ag, and those
individuals p that bind are retained after washing, and optionally
detected with detection system d. A detection system based upon
anti-fd antisera may be used (see, for instance, Example 4 of
WO92/01047). If samples of bound population p are removed under
increasingly stringent conditions, the binding affinity represented
in each sample will increase. Conditions of increased stringency
can be obtained, for example, by increasing the time of soaking or
changing the pH of the soak solution, etc.
Competition
[0079] Referring to FIG. 5(ii) antigen ag can be bound to a solid
support s and bound to saturation by the original binding molecule
c. If a population of mutant pAb (or a set of unrelated pAbs) is
offered to the complex, only those that have higher affinity for
antigen ag than c will bind. In most examples, only a minority of
population c will be displaced by individuals from population p. If
c is a traditional antibody molecule, all bound material can be
recovered and bound p recovered by infecting suitable bacteria
and/or by use of standard techniques such as PCR.
[0080] An advantageous application is where ag is used as a
receptor and c the corresponding ligand. The recovered bound
population p is then related structurally to the receptor binding
site/and or ligand. This type of specificity is known to be very
useful in the pharmaceutical industry.
[0081] Another advantageous application is where ag is an antibody
and c its antigen. The recovered bound population p is then an
anti-idiotype antibody which have numerous uses in research and the
diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries.
[0082] At present it is difficult to select directly for
anti-idiotype antibodies. pAbs would give the ability to do this
directly by binding pAb libraries (eg a naive library) to 5 cells
(which express antibodies on their surface) and isolating those
phage that bound well.
[0083] In some instances it may prove advantageous to pre-select
population p. For example, in the anti-idiotype example above, p
can be absorbed against a related antibody that does not bind the
antigen.
[0084] However, if c is a pAb, then either or both c and p can
advantageously be marked in some way to both distinguish and select
for bound p over bound c. This marking can be physical, for
example, by pre-labelling p with biotin; or more advantageously,
genetic. For example, c can be market with an EcoB restriction
site, whilst p can be marked with an EcoK restriction site (see
Carter, P. et al., 1985, Nucl. Acids Res. 13, 4431-4443). When
bound p+c are eluted from the antigen and used to infect suitable
bacteria, there is restriction (and thus no growth) of population c
(i.e. EcoB restricting bacteria in this example). Any phage that
grew, would be greatly enriched for those individuals from p with
higher binding affinities. Alternatively, the genetic marking can
be achieved by marking p with new sequences, which can be used to
specifically amplify p from the mixture using PCR.
[0085] Since the bound pAbs can be amplified using for example PCR
or bacterial infection, it is also possible to rescue the desired
specificity even when insufficient individuals are bound to allow
detection via conventional techniques.
[0086] The preferred method for selection of a phage displaying a
protein molecule with a desired specificity or affinity will often
be elution from an affinity matrix with a ligand. Thus, self
antigen or fragments thereof may be used to elute specific phage
antibodies from self antigen bound to a matrix. Alternatively, the
homologous antigen from a different species may be bound to a
matrix, a phage antibody library bound, and phage antibodies
specific for the self antigen may be eluted using self antigen. For
instance, a bovine antigen may be bound to the matrix, a human
phage antibody library bound and human antigen used for elution.
Antiself antibodies thus isolated will be specific for epitopes
shared between the bovine and human antigens. A further but less
preferred alternative may be to bind the phage non-specifically to
a column and elute with self antigen. For instance, if a Fab phage
library is bound to an anti-Fab affinity column, it may be washed
at a pH which does not elute non-specific phage and then washed
with solution which is the same except it contains self antigen,
eluting by virtue of the higher affinity for the mobile phase of
phage expressing antibodies against the self antigen.
[0087] For each of these formats elution with increasing
concentrations of ligand should elute phage displaying binding
molecules of increasing affinity. However, when eg a pAb binds to
its antigen with high affinity or avidity (or another protein to
its binding partner) it may not be possible to elute the pAb from
an affinity matrix with molecule related to the antigen.
Alternatively, there may be no suitable specific eluting molecule
that can be prepared in sufficiently high concentration. In these
cases it is necessary to use an elution method which is not
specific to eg the antigen-antibody complex. Some of the
non-specific elution methods generally used reduce phage viability
for instance, phage viability is reduced with time at pH12
(Rossomando, E. F. and Zinder N. D. J. Mol. Biol. 36 387-399 1968).
There may be interactions between eg antibodies and affinity
matrices which cannot be disrupted without completely removing
phage infectivity. In these cases a method is required to elute
phage which does not rely on disruption of eg the antibody--antigen
interaction. A method was therefore devised which allows elution of
bound pAbs under mild conditions (reduction of a dithiol group with
dithiothreitol) which do not disrupt phage structure (Example 47 of
WO92/01047).
[0088] The method of mild elution uses binding of the phage
antibody population to biotinylated antigen and binding to
streptavidin magnetic beads. Following washing to remove
non-binding phage, the phage antibody is eluted and used to infect
cells to give a selected phage antibody population. A disulphide
bond between the biotin and the antigen molecule allows mild
elution with dithiothreitol. A particularly advantageous way of
performing this selection is to use biotinylated antigen in excess
but at or below a concentration equivalent to the desired
dissociation constant for the antigen-antibody binding. This method
is advantageous for the selection of high affinity antibodies (R.
E. Hawkins, S. J. Russell and G. Winter J. Mol. Biol. 226 889-896,
1992). Antibodies may also be selected for slower off rates for
antigen selection as described in (R. E. Hawkins et al, 1992
supra). The concentration of biotinylated antigen may gradually be
reduced to select higher affinity phage antibodies. As an
alternative, the phage antibody may be in excess over biotinylated
antigen in order that phage antibodies compete for binding, in an
analagous way to the competition of peptide phage to biotinylated
antibody described by J. K. Scott & G. P. Smith (Science 249
386-390, 1990).
[0089] This elution procedure is just one example of an elution
procedure under mild conditions. A particularly advantageous method
would be to introduce a nucleotide sequence encoding amino acids
constituting a recognition site for cleavage by a highly specific
protease between the foreign gene inserted, in this instance a gene
for an antibody fragment, and the sequence of the remainder of gene
III. Examples of such highly specific proteases are Factor X and
thrombin. After binding of the phage to an affinity matrix and
elution to remove non-specific binding phage and weak binding
phage, the strongly bound phage would be removed by washing the
column with protease under conditions suitable for digestion at the
cleavage site. This would cleave the antibody fragment from the
phage particle eluting the phage. These phage would be expected to
be infective, since the only protease site should be the one
specifically introduced. Strongly binding phage could then be
recovered by infecting eg. E. coli TG1 cells.
[0090] An alternative procedure to the above is to take the
affinity matrix which has retained the strongly bound pAb and
extract the DNA, for example by boiling in SDS solution. Extracted
DNA can then be used to directly transform E. coli host cells or
alternatively the antibody encoding sequences can be amplified, for
example using PCR with suitable primers such as those disclosed
herein, and then inserted into a vector for expression as a soluble
antibody for further study or a pAb for further rounds of
selection.
[0091] Another preferred method for selection according to affinity
would be by binding to an affinity matrix containing low amounts of
ligand.
[0092] If one wishes to select from a population of phages
displaying a protein molecule with a high affinity for its ligand,
a preferred strategy is to bind a population of phage to an
affinity matrix which contains a low amount of ligand. There is
competition between phage, displaying high affinity and low
affinity proteins, for binding to the ligand on the matrix. Phage
displaying high affinity protein is preferentially bound and low
affinity protein is washed away. The high affinity protein is then
recovered by elution with the ligand or by other procedures which
elute the phage from the affinity matrix (Example 35 of WO92/01047
demonstrates this procedure).
[0093] In summary then, for recovery of the packaged DNA from the
affinity step, the package can be simply eluted, it can be eluted
in the presence of a homologous sbp member which competes with said
package for binding to a complementary sbp member; it could be
removed by boiling, it could be removed by proteolytic cleavage of
the protein; and other methods will be apparent to those skilled in
the art eg. destroying the link between the substrate and
complementary sbp member to release said packaged DNA and sbp
member. At any rate, the objective is to obtain the DNA from the
package so that it can be used directly or indirectly, to express
the sbp member encoded thereby.
[0094] The efficiency of this selection procedure for pAbs and the
ability to create very large libraries means that the immunisation
techniques developed to increase the proportion of screened cells
producing antibodies of interest will not be an absolute
requirement. The technique allows the rapid isolation of binding
specificities eg antigen-binding specificities, including those
that would be difficult or even unobtainable by conventional
techniques, for example, catalytic or anti-idiotypic antibodies.
Removal of the animal altogether is now possible, once a complete
library of the immune repertoire has been constructed.
Applications of Antibodies to Self Antigens
[0095] Human antibodies to cell surface components. The isolation
of such antibody specificities would be particularly useful for
preparing agents which mediate cell killing for instance of cancer
cells, for example using the natural effector function of
antibodies. Anti-self antibodies may also be valuable in the
preparation of diagnostic in vivo imaging reagents, for instance
using radioisotopes.
[0096] Antibodies directed against cell surface components of
specific T-cell subsets could be used therapeutically (D. Wraith et
al Cell 57 709-715, 1989; L. Steinman and R. Mantegazza FASEB J. 4
2726-2731, 1990), for instance to prevent T cell action causing
rheumatoid arthritis.
Human Antibodies Modifying the Function of Self Molecules
[0097] Antibodies can be isolated which modify the action of self
molecules such as hormones, growth factors and receptors through
their binding to a specific epitope on the molecule.
Multifunctional proteins may have both desirable and undesirable
characteristics, particularly if they are used therapeutically. For
instance, the lymphokine TNF (tumour necrosis factor) binds to, at
least two different classes of cell receptors one commonly found on
vascular endothelial cells, the other commonly found on tumour
cells. A mouse antibody to TNF has been made which prevents TNF
from binding to endothelial cell receptors while still allowing it
to bind to tumour cells thus allowing attack on the tumours without
toxic side effects mediated through endothelial cells (Patent
application PCT/AU90/00337). For therapeutic use of antibody
modifiers of hormone or growth factor molecules, it would be
preferable to have a human antibody specificity isolated directly
through selection from a phage library.
Human Anti-Idiotypes
[0098] Anti-idiotype antibodies (antibodies directed against the
antigen combining sites formed by the variable domains of human
antibodies) are conventionally made by isolating an antibody
against an antigen and then using this isolated antibody as an
immunogen to raise antibodies directed against it. If the original
antibody is directed against a hormone or growth factor, the
relationship between antigen and antibody combining sites means
that the anti-idiotype may mimic in some aspects the hormone or
growth factor and bind to the receptor for these molecules.
However, the fraction of anti-idiotype antibodies able to mimic the
binding of the hormone to the receptor would be expected to be
small. Furthermore, the deletion of antiself lymphocytes would mean
that using the conventional route to antiidiotypes would be
difficult for the isolation of human anti-idiotype antibodies
mimicking molecules binding human receptors. In this application we
show that antibodies directed against the antigen combining sites
formed by the variable domains of human antibodies may be directly
isolated from phage antibody display libraries, as shown in
examples 1 and 4, and it should also be possible to identify the
anti-idiotypic antibodies mimicking the binding of the hormone
directly by screening for binding to the receptor.
[0099] Anti-idiotypes may also be useful for the treatment of
autoimmune disease. They could be used to bind to circulating
autoantibodies. However, it may be preferable to attack directly
antibody producing cells, for instance using a bispecific antibody
directed against a cell surface marker as well as an anti-idiotype
specificity. Alternatively, plasmaphoresis could be used to remove
circulating antibody and the cells treated directly.
Human Antibodies Against Receptors
[0100] Human antibodies that bind to receptors, blocking or
antagonising ligand function could be selected directly from a
phage library displaying antibodies derived from an unimmunised
donor.
Human Antibodies to Prevent Transplant Rejection
[0101] Antibodies directed against the major histocompatibility
complex proteins could be used to treat patients following
transplants, or organs prior to transplantation, in order to
prevent rejection. Antibodies directed against several lymphocyte
cell surface markers have been used for the prevention of rejection
in transplants e.g. CD45, CD3, CD4, CD8 and interleukin-2 receptor.
Example 3 shows that human antibodies against CD4 can be directly
isolated from phage display libraries.
Human Antibodies Against Cytokines
[0102] Human antibodies against cytokines would be valuable for
treatment of human disease, for example of septic shock with
anti-TNF and anti-interleukin 1 antibodies. Examples 1 and 6 show
that human antibodies against TNF can be isolated directly from
phage antibody libraries derived from unimmunised humans or the
synthetic recombination of V, D and J fragments. In many cases
these cytokine molecules are strongly conserved between species,
for instance transforming growth factor-.beta. (TGF-.beta.), and it
has proved difficult to isolate antibodies directed against the
human molecule even in mice. The isolation of human anti-self
antibodies as described in this invention provides a method of
obtaining human antibodies with such a specificity.
Human Antibodies for Diagnosis and Treatment of Cardiac
Disorders
[0103] Human antibodies against clot components e.g. fibrin, would
be useful for imaging clots when labelled with radioactivity or for
dissolving clots, if for example linked to a clot dissolving enzyme
such as urokinase.
Antibodies Triggering Receptor Function
[0104] Antibodies may be selected that bind to a cell receptor and
trigger a biological response in the cell. This is described in
more detail below and in Example 8 describes the isolation of such
antibodies.
[0105] By cycles of growth and selection, those rgdps binding to
the cell receptors are isolated. Some of these rgdps encode binding
specificities with the potential (alone or in combination with
other binding specificities) to trigger the receptors. These
binding specificities are tested alone, or in combination, for
triggering the cell receptors.
[0106] There are a variety of cell receptors in which the binding
of a ligand, for example hormone, growth factor, or peptide
triggers a biological event, for example the activation of tyrosine
kinase activity, or the opening of an ion channel. The rdgps could
be selected for binding to cell receptor (or a related receptor
with conserved portions of surface such as from another species),
for example by using cells displaying the cell receptor, or using
soluble receptor immobilised on solid phase, or using domains or
peptide epitopes of the receptor. Ideally the receptor would be
provided in a crosslinked form (as required for its
triggering).
[0107] Triggering of receptors at the cell surface often seems to
involve the relative movement of proteins or subunits. For example,
in the neurotransmitter-gated receptors, the five subunits that are
arranged symmetrically in the membrane place, delineate an ion
pathway down the centre. Binding of the neurotransmitter is thought
to alter the size of the central ion channel by causing small
rearrangements between the subunits in an allosteric transition.
For tyrosine kinase receptors, the ligand appears to drive receptor
oligomerisation. Thus antibodies with binding specificities
directed against a receptor may have the potential to promote an
allosteric chance or to promote oligomerisation. The
oligomerisation of the receptors may also be promoted by using
bivalent or bispecific antibodies.
[0108] The soluble antibodies or antibody fragments may be
monovalent fragments, for example, single chain Fv fragments or Fab
fragments, or bivalent fragments, for example, Fab.sub.2 or
complete antibody fragments. The bivalency could also be promoted
in other ways, for example (1) by encoding a tag, such as a peptide
or protein (for example, the subunit of a dimeric protein) that
self associates, at the N or C-terminus of the monomeric fragment,
(2) using a bivalent antibody that binds to the monovalent
fragment, for example, to a common C-terminal tag, or to an
antibody constant domain (3) chemical cross-linking.
[0109] Bispecific antibody or bispecific fragments could also be
made as for the bivalent fragments. (For expression of the
bispecific antibody or fragment in the same ce11, the genes
encoding both specificities would need to be introduced together).
The different antibody "arms" could be directed against the same
receptor, for example to different epitopes, or to two different
receptors (to trigger hybrid receptors).
[0110] The direct isolation of anti-self antibodies from phage
libraries as described in this invention is important to allow a
large number of antibodies to be surveyed for these triggering
receptors.
[0111] It is appropriate to distinguish the making of antibodies to
trigger receptors as is described here and provided as an aspect of
the present invention from the "anti-idiotypic route" in which
specific antibodies raised in an animal, including man, by
vaccinating the said animal with a specific antigen are themselves
used to vaccinate another animal, new antibodies termed
anti-idiotypic antibodies (Anti-Ids) being produced able to
recognise and bind to the first set of antibodies. Some species of
these Anti-Ids are able to mimic the specific biological properties
of the original antigen. If for example, the antigen were a peptide
hormone or a cell receptor, the Anti-Id to the hormone or cell
receptor antigen is able to elicit a response of the cell (See
Gaulton, G. N. and Gregne, M. I., 1986. Idiotypic mimicry of
biological receptors. Ann. Rev. Immunol. 4, 253-280; Sege, K. and
Peterson, P. A., 1978. Use of anti-idiotypic antibodies as cell
surface receptor probes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Usa. 75, 2443-2447
for examples).
[0112] The essence of current teaching of Anti-Ids as mimics of
antigens is that they are produced as a result of constructing
antibodies to antibodies of the original antigen. There is however,
some controversy over whether such anti-idiotypes accurately mimic
the original antigen (S. J. Davis et al Nature 358 76-79,
1992).
[0113] There is therefore a clear distinction between antibodies
prepared by an anti-idiotypic route that mimic antigens such as
growth factors or hormones, and antibodies that are made directly
to the receptors to trigger the receptors. The antibodies derived
by an anti-idiotypic route require the antigen (hormone, growth
factor) and will bind to the same epitope on the receptor as the
hormone, while the antibodies derived by binding to the receptors
need not bind to the same epitope to trigger the receptor. Indeed
such antibodies need not mimic a known hormone or growth factor, as
their specificity, or binding to receptor (characterised as
epitope, on-rate or off-rate) or blood clearance is likely to
differ. The process for making the antibodies is also quite
different. Anti-idiotypic antibodies are made classically by
immunisation of animals, although they can be isolated directly
from phage display libraries as described above. Antibodies
directed against self receptors are made by selection from V-gene
libraries (as described above).
[0114] As well as the advantages over the anti-idiotypic route, the
antibodies derived directly by receptor binding may even have
advantages over the natural hormone or growth factor. Thus
receptors that are defective for binding of the natural hormone or
growth factor (for example in a genetic disease), may be triggered
by an antibody binding at a different epitope.
[0115] As therapeutic agents the various isotypes of antibodies or
fragments of antibodies carrying the variable regions responsible
for the specificity of the molecule have a number of properties
having advantages over the bioactive moiety they mimic. For
example, unlike the natural hormones their half-life in circulation
can be modified readily. Depending on the antibody isotype or
fragment chosen, they have half-lives in circulation in a patient
ranging from minutes to several weeks. If long term usage or short
term clearance is required this can easily be accommodated by
choosing the appropriate antibody isotype without need to use slow
release devices as implants, or continuous intravenous infusion,
etc.
[0116] Furthermore, many hormones or tissue growth factors or
antigens in general are functionally complex with different
epitopes of each of the molecules having various specific
functions. Clones of antibody mimics are monofunctional in this
respect so could be used to produce one specific biological effect
of a hormone without a second effect which latter effect may be
disadvantageous to the patient. Thus the lymphokine TNF (tumour
necrosis factor) binds to two different classes of cell
receptors--one common on vascular endothelial cells, the other
common on tumour cells. If the TNF is modified so that it cannot
bind to the endothelial cell receptors but can still bind to tumour
cell receptors, the tumours are attacked without at the same time
inducing the very toxic side effects mediated through the vascular
receptors. (This is described in Australian Patent Application
PCT/AU90/00337). An antibody mimic able to recognise the tumour
cell receptor would be expected to be very specific and kill tumour
cells without inducing toxic side effects mediated through the
vascular endothelium since it would have no resemblance to the TNF
epitope which binds to receptors on the latter,
Terminology
[0117] Much of the terminology discussed in this section has been
mentioned in the text where appropriate.
Self
[0118] A self antigen is an antigen or epitope which is capable of
binding to an antigen binding site formed by antibody variable
domain(s) and which is conserved between members of a species of
animal and native to the body.
[0119] The immune system tries to avoid making antibodies to self
antigens. It has been suggested that (i) sequences of germ line V
gene segments have been evolved under pressure to be directed
towards foreign, e.g. pathogen, antigens and epitopes, and away
from being able to provide antibodies which will bind self
antigens, and (ii) that, in addition to this, immune tolerance
causes those combinations of gene segments encoding anti-self
antibody which do arise, to be deleted or anergised. Consequently,
there are not normally circulating antibodies against these
antigens except in disease states, eg autoimmune diseases. A self
antigen may be one which does not vary between individuals of a
species. A self antigen may be one for which there is normal
allelic variation throughout a population. Immunisation of one
individual in a species with a self antigen would not normally be
expected to result in generation, or detection, of antibodies to
the antigen, except perhaps when tolerance is deliberately broken.
Antibodies to a self-antigen may only be present in an individual
who is suffering from autoimmune disease. On the other hand, there
are some self antigens to which circulating antibodies can be found
in a sub-population of normal individuals of a species.
[0120] A self antigen may be an antigen recognised by B-cell
surface antibodies but not by antibodies which can be found
circulating. It might not be possible to detect or obtain
circulating antibodies to a self antigen except perhaps when the
individual is suffering from an autoimmune disease or syndrome.
[0121] An anti-self antibody or antibody fragment is an antibody or
fragment thereof which has binding specificity for a self antigen.
It may recognise an epitope which is found only on a self antigen,
or it may be cross-reactive with an antigen which individuals of
the species will recognise as foreign. The present invention is
particularly well suited to the production and isolation of
antibody fragments which bind only a self antigen.
Specific Binding Pair
[0122] This describes a pair of molecules (each being a member of a
specific binding pair) which are naturally derived or synthetically
produced. One of the pair of molecules, has an area on its surface,
or a cavity which specifically binds to, and is therefore defined
as complementary with a particular spatial and polar organisation
of the other molecule, so that the pair have the property of
binding specifically to each other. Examples of types of specific
binding pairs are antigen-antibody, biotin-avidin, hormone-hormone
receptor, receptor-ligand, enzyme-substrate, 1gG-protein A.
Multimeric Member
[0123] This describes a first polypeptide which will associate with
at least a second polypeptide, when the polypeptides are expressed
in free form and/or expressed on the surface of a substrate. The
substrate may be provided by a bacteriophage. Where there are two
associated polypeptides, the associated polypeptide complex is a
dimer, where there are three, a trimer etc. The dimer, trimer,
multimer etc or the multimeric member may comprise a member of a
specific binding pair.
[0124] Example multimeric members are heavy domains based on an
immunoglobulin molecule, light domains based on an immunoglobulin
molecule, T-cell receptor subunits.
Replicable Genetic Display Package (Rgdp)
[0125] This describes a biological particle which has genetic
information providing the particle with the ability to replicate.
The particle can display on its surface at least part of a
polypeptide. The polypeptide can be encoded by genetic information
native to the particle and/or artificially placed into the particle
or an ancestor of it. The displayed polypeptide may be any member
of a specific binding pair eg. heavy or light chain domains based
on an immunoglobulin molecule, an enzyme or a receptor etc.
[0126] The particle may be a virus eg. a bacteriophage such as fd
or M13.
Package
[0127] This describes a replicable genetic display package in which
the particle is displaying a member of a specific binding pair at
its surface. The package may be a bacteriophage which displays an
antigen binding domain at its surface. This type of package has
been called a phage antibody (pAb).
Antibody
[0128] This describes an immunoglobulin whether natural or partly
or wholly synthetically produced. The term also covers any protein
having a binding domain which is, or is homologous to, an
immunoglobulin binding domain. These proteins can be derived from
natural sources, or partly or wholly synthetically produced.
[0129] Example antibodies are the immunoglobulin isotypes and the
Fab, F(ab').sub.2, scFv, Fv, dAb, Fd fragments.
Immunoglobulin Superfamily
[0130] This describes a family of polypeptides, the members of
which have at least one domain with a structure related to that of
the variable or constant domain of immunoglobulin molecules. The
domain contains two .beta.-sheets and usually a conserved
disulphide bond (see A. F. Williams and A. N. Barclay 1988 Ann. Rev
Immunol. 6, 381-405).
[0131] Example members of an immunoglobulin superfamily are CD4,
platelet derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR), intercellular
adhesion molecule (ICAM). Except where the context otherwise
dictates, reference to immunoglobulins and immunoglobulin homologs
in this application includes members of the immunoglobulin
superfamily and homologs thereof.
Homologs
[0132] This term indicates polypeptides having the same or
conserved residues at a corresponding position in their primary,
secondary or tertiary structure. The term also extends to two or
more nucleotide sequences encoding the homologous polypeptides.
[0133] Example homologous peptides are the immunoglobulin isotypes
and the TIM barrel enzymes.
Functional
[0134] In relation to a sbp member displayed on the surface of a
rgdp, means that the sbp member is presented in a folded form in
which its specific binding domain for its complementary sbp member
is the same or closely analogous to its native configuration,
whereby it exhibits similar specificity with respect to the
complementary sbp member.
Genetically Diverse Population
[0135] In connection with sbp members or polypeptide components
thereof, this is referring not only to diversity that can exist in
the natural population of cells or organisms, but also diversity
that can be created by artificial mutation in vitro or in vivo.
[0136] Mutation in vitro may for example, involve random
mutagenesis using oligonucleotides having random mutations of the
sequence desired to be varied. In vivo mutagenesis may for example,
use mutator strains of host microorganisms to harbour the DNA (see
Example 38 of WO 92/01047). The words "unique population" may be
used to denote a plurality of, e.g., polypeptide chains which are
not genetically diverse, i.e., they are all the same. A restricted
population is one which is diverse but less so than the full
repertoire of an animal or a library, synthetic or otherwise. The
diversity may have been reduced by prior selection, e.g., using
antigen binding specificity.
Domain
[0137] A domain is a part of a protein that is folded within itself
and independently of other parts of the same protein and
independently of a complementary binding member. A folded unit is a
specific combination of a .alpha.-helix and/or .beta.-sheet
structure. Domains and folded units contain structures that bring
together amino acids that are not adjacent in the primary
structure.
Free Form
[0138] This describes the state of a polypeptide which is not
displayed by a replicable genetic display package.
Conditionally Defective
[0139] This describes a gene which expresses a defective
polypeptide under one set of conditions, but expresses a different
but related non-defective polypeptide under another set of
conditions. An example, is a gene containing an amber mutation
expressed in non-suppressing or suppressing hosts respectively.
[0140] Alternatively, a gene may express a protein which is
defective under one set of conditions, but not under another set.
An example is a gene with a temperature sensitive mutation.
Suppressible Translational Stop Codon
[0141] This describes a codon which allows the translation of
nucleotide sequences downstream of the codon under one set of
conditions, but under another set of conditions translation ends at
the codon. Example of suppressible translational stop codons are
the amber, ochre and opal condons.
[0142] Mutator Strain
[0143] This is a host cell which has a genetic defect which causes
DNA replicated within it to be mutated with respect to its parent
DNA. Example mutator strains are NR9046mutD5 and NR9046 mut T1 (see
Example 38 of WO92/01047).
Helper Phage
[0144] This is a phage which is used to infect cells containing a
defective phage genome and which functions to complement the
defect. The defective phage genome can be a phagemid or a phage
with some function encoding gene sequences removed. Examples of
helper phages are M13K07, M13K07 gene III no. 3; and phage
displaying or encoding a binding molecule fused to a capsid
protein.
Vector
[0145] This is a DNA molecule, capable of replication in a host
organism, into which a gene is inserted to construct a recombinant
DNA molecule.
Phage Vector
[0146] This is a vector derived by modification of a phage genome,
containing an origin of replication for a bacteriophage, but not
one for a plasmid.
Phagemid Vector
[0147] This is a vector derived by modification of a plasmid
genome, containing an origin of replication for a bacteriophage as
well as the plasmid origin of replication.
Secreted
[0148] This describes a rgdp or molecule that associates with the
member of a sbp displayed on the rgdp, in which the sbp member
and/or the molecule, have been folded and the package assembled
externally to the cellular cytosol.
Repertoire of Rearranged Immunoglobulin Genes
[0149] A collection of naturally occurring nucleotides eg DNA
sequences which encoded expressed immunoglobulin genes in an
animal. The sequences are generated by the in vivo rearrangement of
eg V, D and J segments for H chains and eg the V and J segments for
L chains. Alternatively the sequences may be generated from a cell
line immnised in vitro and in which the rearrangement in response
to immunisation occurs intracellularly.
Library
[0150] A collection of nucleotides eg DNA sequences within clones;
or a genetically diverse collection of polypeptides, or specific
binding pair members, or polypeptides or sbp members which are
displayed on rgdps capable of being selected or screened to provide
an individual polypeptide or sbp member or a mixed population of
polypeptides or sbp members.
Repertoire of Artifically Rearranged Immunoglobulin Genes
[0151] A collection of nucleotides eg DNA sequences derived wholly
or partly from a source other than the rearranged immunoglobulin
sequences from an animal. This may include for example, DNA
sequences encoding VH domains by combining unrearranged V segments
with D and J segments and DNA sequences encoding VL domains by
combining V and J segments.
[0152] Part or all of the DNA sequences may be derived by
oligonucleotide synthesis.
Secretory Leader Peptide
[0153] This is a sequence of amino acids joined to the N-terminal
end of a polypeptide and which directs movement of the polypeptide
out of the cytosol.
Eluant
[0154] This is a solution used to breakdown the linkage between two
molecules. The linkage can be a non-covalent or covalent bond(s).
The two molecules can be members of a sbp.
Derivative
[0155] This is a polypeptide which derived from another polypeptide
which is encoded by the DNA within a selected rdgp. The derivative
polypeptide may differ from the encoded polypeptide by the
addition, deletion, substitution or insertion of amino acids, or by
the linkage of other molecules to the encoded polypeptide. These
changes may be made at the nucleotide or protein level. For example
the encoded polypeptide may be a Fab fragment which is then linked
to an Fe tail from another source. Alternatively markers such as
enzymes, fluoresceins etc may be linked to e.g. Fab, scFv
fragments.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
[0156] FIGS. 1A-1C show an analysis by ELISA of the specificities
of soluble single-chain Fvs (scFvs) isolated from the unimmunised
library by selection on bovine thyroglobulin (A), human TNF.alpha.
(B), or the human mAb Fog-1 (gamma-1, kappa)(C). Binding was
determined by ELISA to a panel of proteins, as follows: 1--plastic;
2--hen egg trypsin inhibitor; 3--chymotrypsinogen A; 4--hen egg
ovalbumin; 5--keyhole limpet haemocyanin; 6--bovine thyroglobulin;
7--human TNF.alpha.; 8--turkey egg-white lysozyme; 9--horse heart
cytochrome c; 10--bovine serum albumin; 11--mAb Fog-1.
[0157] FIGS. 2A-2C show an analysis by ELISA of the specificities
of soluble scFvs isolated from the unimmunised library by selection
on human carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) (A), the MUC1 peptide
(Price et al., 1990, supra) (B), or human CD4 (C). Binding was
determined by ELISA to a panel of proteins, as follows: 1--hen egg
trypsin inhibitor; 2--chymotrypsinogen A; 3--hen egg ovalbumin;
4--keyhole limpet haemocyanin; 5--CEA; 6--urine extract containing
human polymorphic epithelial mucin (PEM); 7--bovine thyroglobulin;
8--hen egg-white lysozyme; 9--bovine serum albumin; 10--chicken
gamma globulin coupled to 4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl acetic acid;
11--human recombinant soluble CD4.
[0158] FIGS. 3A-3C show an ELISA to assay the binding of three
scFvs, isolated by selection on a human monoclonal antibody Fog-1
(IgG1, kappa), to a panel of human antibodies of varying isotype,
as follows: 1--Fog-1; 2--the Fv fragment of Hulys11; 3--Hulys11
antibody (IgG1, kappa); 4--RegA (IgG1, kappa); FogC (IgG3, kappa);
6--Pag1 (IgG1, lambda); 7 IgG2,lambda antibody purified from
myeloma plasma (Sigma); 8--Oak3 (IgG3, lambda); 9--IgG4, lambda
purified from mycloma plasma (Sigma); 10 Fom1 (IgM, lambda);
11--FomA (IgM, lambda).
[0159] FIG. 4 illustrates the assembly of V.sub.H genes in the
creation of a synthetic library.
[0160] FIG. 5 shows schematically selection techniques for pAbs:
2(i) shows a binding/elution system; 2(ii) shows a competition
system (p=pAb; ag=antigen to which binding by pAb is required;
c=competitor population e.g. antibody, pAb, ligand; s=substrate
(e.g. plastic beads etc); d=detection system).
[0161] The present invention is illustrated by the following
examples. Oligonucleotide primers and probes mentioned in the text
are listed in Table IV. [0162] Tables I to IV are found after
Example 8. [0163] Example 1 shows the isolation of antibodies
directed against human tumour necrosis factor-.alpha. and a human
monoclonal antibody from a phage library of single chain Fv
fragments derived from an unimmunized human. [0164] Example 2 shows
the isolation of antibodies binding to human thyroglobulin from a
phage library of single chain Fv fragments derived from an
unimmunized human. [0165] Example 3 shows the isolation of antibody
fragments directed against the self antigens MUC1 mucin,
carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and recombinant soluble CD4 (rsCD4)
from a phage display library of single chain Fv fragments derived
from an unimmunized human. [0166] Example 4 shows the further
characterization of selected anti-self antibody fragments by DNA
sequencing and affinity determinations. [0167] Example 5 shows the
creation of a synthetic human library using germ line VH segments.
[0168] Example 6 shows the isolation of an antibody fragment
binding to human tumour necrosis factor-.alpha. from a human germ
line synthetic library. [0169] Example 7 shows the creation of a
synthetic human library using human germ line VH segments
containing VH CDR3 sequences of different lengths and isolation of
single chain Fv fragments binding to human thyroglobulin and a
human monoclonal antibody. [0170] Example 8 shows the isolation of
human antibodies directed against human interleukin-1 receptor
molecules which trigger receptor function.
EXAMPLE 1
[0171] Isolation of Antibody Fragments Directed Against Self
Antigens from a Library of scFvs Made from Unimmunized Blood
Donors
[0172] Naturally occuring V-genes isolated from human PBLs can be
constructed into a large library of antibody fragments which
contain reactivities against antigens to which the donor has not
been exposed (WO92/01047 example 42). We have realised that these
libraries may also contain reactivities against self antigens,
arising either from self-reactive B-cells which have not been
deleted or as non-naturally occuring fragments resulting from VH
and VL chain recombination. To test this, we panned a large human
scFv library displayed on the surface of a phagemid against human
TNF-a and a human IgG/k immunoglobulin.
Methods
Rescue of the Library:
[0173] The library of scFvs was constructed from the RNA of human
PBLs and has been previously described (WO92/01047 example 42). To
rescue phage displaying antibody fragments, approximately 10.sup.9
E. coli harbouring the phagemid were used to inoculate 50 ml of
2.times.TY containing 1% glucose and 100 mg/ml of ampicillin
(2.times.TY-AMP-GLU) and grown to an O.D. of 0.8 with shaking. Five
ml of this culture was used to innoculate 50 ml of
2.times.TY-AMP-GLU, 2.times.10.sup.8 TU of delta gene 3 helper (M13
D gene III see WO92/01047) were added and the culture incubated at
37.degree. C. for 45 minutes without shaking and then at 37.degree.
C. for 45 minutes with shaking. The culture was centrifuged at 4000
r.p.m. for 10 min. and the pellet resuspended in 2 litres of
2.times.TY containing 100 mg/ml ampicillin and 50 mg/ml kanamycin
and grown overnight. Phage were prepared as previously described
(WO92/01047 example 42).
M13 D Gene III was Prepared as Follows:
[0174] M13 D gene III helper phage does not encode gene III
protein, hence the phage(mid) displaying antibody fragments have a
greater avidity of binding to antigen. Infectious M13 D gene III
particles are made by growing the helper phage in cells harbouring
a pUC19 derivative supplying the wild type gIII protein during
phage morphogenesis. The culture was incubated for 1 hour at
37.degree. C. without shaking and then for a further hour at
37.degree. C. with shaking. Cells were spun down (IEC-Centra 8,
4000 revs/min for 10 min), resuspended in 300 ml 2.times.TY broth
containing 100 mg ampicillin/ml and 25 mg kanamycin/ml
(2.times.TY-AMP-KAN) and grown overnight, shaking at 37.degree. C.
Phage particles were purified and concentrated from the culture
medium by two PEG-precipitations (Sambrook et al., 1990),
resuspended in 2 ml PBS and passed through a 0.45 mm filter
(Minisart NML; Sartorius) to give a final concentration of
approximately 10.sup.13 transducing units/ml (ampicillin-resistant
clones).
Panning of the Library:
[0175] IMMUNOTUBES (Nunc Fisher Scientific, Leicestershire, UI)
were coated overnight in PBS with 4 ml of either 100 mg/ml or 10
mg/ml of recombinant human TNF-a in PBS or 4 ml of 10 mg/ml of
Fog-1, a human IgG/k immunoglobulin which recognizes the human red
blood cell Rh (D) antigen. Tubes were blocked with 2% Marvel-PBS
for 2 hours at 37.degree. C. and then washed 3 times in PBS.
Approximately 1013 TU of phage was applied to the tube and
incubated for 30 minutes at room temperature tumbling on an over
and under turntable and then left to stand for another 1.5 hours.
Tubes were washed 10 times with PBS 0.1% TWEEN-20 (neutral
detergent) and 10 times with PBS. Phage were eluted by adding 1 ml
of 100 mM triethylamine and rotating 15 minutes on an under and
over turntable after which the solution was immediately neutralized
with 0.5 ml of 1.0 M Tris-HCl, pH 7.4. Phage were then used to
infect 10 ml of mid-log E. coli TG1 by incubating eluted phage with
bacteria for 30 minutes at 37.degree. C. The E. coli were then
plated on TYE plates containing 1% glucose and 100 mg/ml
ampicillin. The resulting bacterial library was then rescued with
delta gene 3 helper phage as described above to prepare phage for a
subsequent round of selection. This process was then repeated for a
total of 4 rounds of affinity purification with tube-washing
increased to 20 times with PBS, 0.1% TWEEN-20 (neutral detergent)
and 20 times with PBS for rounds 3 and 4.
Characterization of Binders:
[0176] Eluted phage from the 3rd and 4th rounds of selection were
used to infect E. coli HB 2151 and soluble scFv was produced
(Marks, et al., 1991) from single colonies for assay. In the case
of TNF, phage was also rescued from single colonies. ELISAs were
performed as previously described with microtitre plates coated
with either 10 .mu.g/ml human TNF-a in 50 mM bicarbonate pH 9.6 or
10 .mu.g/ml Fog-1 in PBS. Clones positive in ELISA were further
characterized by PCR fingerprinting (WO92/01047 example 20) and
then by sequencing.
Results
[0177] TNF: Soluble scFv from 1536 colonies and phage from 1152
colonies were screened by ELISA. The results are shown in FIG. 1,
the key for which is given in the brief description of the figures
(supra). Positive clones for binding to TNF-a were further
characterized by PCR fingerprinting and sequencing. In this manner,
15 different binders were identified. Four of these have been
sequenced. [0178] Fog-1: Soluble scFv from 96 clones was screened
by ELISA and positive clones were further characterized by PCR
fingerprinting and sequencing. In this manner, four different
binders were identifed and sequenced.
EXAMPLE 2
[0179] Isolation of Antibody Fragments Specificities Directed
Against Human Thyroglobulin from a Library of scFv Fragments Using
Display on Bacteriophage fd
[0180] Example 44 of WO92/01047 describes the selection of antibody
scFv fragments directed against bovine thyroglobulin from a library
of scFv fragments. These were derived from unimmunised humans,
expressed on the surface of phage fd, isolated by panning against
bovine thyroglobulin. The results demonstrated that it is possible
to isolate from a library derived from an unimmunised individual
antibody fragments which will bind an antigen to which that
individual has never been exposed.
[0181] Sixteen clones found by this panning to be specific for
bovine thyroglobulin have now been analysed for binding to human
thyroglobulin in an ELISA assay (as described in example 44 of
WO92/01047). Nine of these clones also bound strongly to human
thyroglobulin with absorbance signals of between 1.0 and 1.6 12
minutes after addition of substrate. No cross-reactivity (signal
less than 0.05 after 90 min) was found with a panel of unrelated
antigens-hen egg lysozyme, BSA, ovalbumin, chymotrypsinogen,
cytochrome c, keyhole limpet hemocyanin, insulin, cardiolipin and
DNA.
[0182] Thus, antibodies with specificity for epitopes on the human
self antigen thyroglobulin can be isolated from libraries prepared
from unimmunised humans.
[0183] Two clones binding to both human and bovine thyroglobulin,
.alpha.-Thy23 and .alpha.-Thy29, and two clones binding to bovine
thyroglobulin only, .alpha.-Thy32 and .alpha.-Thy33, were
sequenced.
EXAMPLE 3
[0184] Isolation of Antibody Fragments Directed Against the Human
Self-Antigens MUC1 Mucin, Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA) and
Recombinant Soluble CD4 (rsCD4) from a Phage Display Library of
Human Single Chain Fv Fragments
[0185] The phage display library, of single chain Fv fragments
derived from unimmunized human donors used in Example 1 was used in
selection to isolate antibody fragments directed against the self
antigens MUC1 mucin, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and recombinant
soluble CD4 (rsCD4)
Rescue of the Library
[0186] The library was rescued as in example 1 except that the
standard helper phage M13K07 (5.times.10.sup.10 pfu) was used to
rescue the library rather than delta gene 3 helper phage (M13 D
gene III).
Selection of Phase Specific for MUC1 Mucin and Carcinoembryonic
Antigen (CEA)
[0187] The phage were panned for binding using IMMUNOTUBES (Nunc;
Maxisorp, Fisher Scientific, Leicestershire, UK) coated with
antigen essentially as (Marks et al., 1991), or were selected on a
column of antigen (J. McCafferty et al, Nature 348 552-554, 1990).
The following antigens were used: human recombinant soluble CD4
(rsCD4) (expressed in baculovirus by American Biotechnologies Inc.
and supplied by the MRC AIDS Reagent Project [ADP608]); human
carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA); and a 20 amino acid peptide (M. R.
Price et al., Molec. Immunol. 27 795-802, 1990), which corresponds
to a repeated motif in human MUC1 mucin (tumour-associated
polymorphic epithelial mucin or PEM) (S. Gendler et al., J. Biol.
Chem., 263, 12820-12823, 1988; J. R. Gum et al., Biochem. Biophys.
Res. Commun. 171 407-415, 1990).
[0188] CEA (20 mg/ml) and rsCD4 (10 mg/ml) were coated on
immunotubes overnight at room temperature in phosphate buffered
saline. For the first two rounds of selection tubes were washed 10
times with PBS, 0.1% (v/v) TWEEN 20 (neutral detergent) and 10
times with PBS. For subsequent rounds of selection tubes were
washed 20 times with PBS, 0.1% (v/v) TWEEN 20 (neutral detergent)
and 20 times with PBS. Phage were eluted with 100 mM triethylamine
as (Marks et al., 1991). Eluted phage (usually 10.sup.6 to 10.sup.7
transducing units) were used to infect E. coli TG1 cells. Approx.
10.sup.9 infected bacteria were used as an inoculum for the next
rescue. The library was subjected to 3 to 5 rounds of rescue and
selection for each antigen.
[0189] For selection of phage binding to the MUC1 peptide, the
peptide was coupled chemically to SEPHAROSE 4B (provided by M. R.
Price). A 1 ml column was prepared, and phage was selected as
described by McCafferty et al., 1990 (supra). Briefly, the
SEPHAROSE-MUC1 column was washed with PBS containing 2% skimmed
milk powder (MPBS) and the phage loaded in 1 ml of the same buffer.
After washing the column successively with 10 ml volumes of MPBS,
PBS pH7.2, 50 mM Tris-HCl/500 mM NaCl pH8.0, and 50 mM Tris-HCl/500
mM NaCl pH9.0, phage was eluted with 5 ml 100 mM triethylamine and
neutralised with 0.5M sodium phosphate buffer pH 6.8. Five rounds
of selection were carried out.
Screening and Sequencing of Clones
[0190] Single ampicillin resistant colonies from infection of E.
coli TG1 with eluted phage, were screened either for binding of
phage (Clackson et al., 1991) or soluble scFv fragments (Marks et
al., 1991). Since the gene encoding the antibody fragment is linked
to that encoding the phage coat protein by an amber codon, soluble
fragments can be secreted from a non-suppressor strain of bacteria
infected by the phage (Hoogenboom et al., 1991). The binding to
antigen of soluble scFvs in bacterial supernatant was detected with
the mouse mAb 9E10 (1 .mu.g/ml), which recognises the C-terminal
peptide tag (Munro and Pelham, Cell 46, 291-300, 1986), and
peroxidase-conjugated anti-mouse Fc antibody (Sigma Chemicals,
Poole, Dorset, UK), as described (Ward et al., 1989). Plates were
coated with the antigens Fog1, TNF.alpha., bovine thyroglobulin and
rsCD4 as described for immuno tubes above, and with CEA at 5 mg/ml.
A urine extract containing human polymorphic epithelial mucin (PEM)
was used at a protein concentration of approximately 10 mg/ml.
[0191] The specificity of the isolated clones was checked by ELISA
of the soluble scFv fragments using plates coated with various
proteins. Plates were coated with the antigens Fog-1, TNFa, bovine
thyroglobulin, rsCD4, CEA and PEM as described above. Other
proteins were coated overnight at room temperature at a
concentration of 1 mg/ml in PBS (cytochrome c [Sigma Chemicals,
Poole, Dorset, UK]) or in 50 mM NaHCO3, pH 9.6 (bovine serum
albumin, turkey egg-white lysozyme, hen-egg-white lysozyme, hen
ovalbumin, keyhole limpet haemocyanin [CalBiochem],
chymotrypsinogen A, chicken egg-white trypsin inhibitor [Sigma
Chemicals, Poole, Dorset, UK], chicken gamma globulin coupled to
4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl acetic acid. Clones found to give a
positive ELISA signal were screened by PCR and `fingerprinted` with
the restriction enzyme BstNI as in (Marks et al., 1991, supra) to
identify different clones. Examples of clones with different
restriction patterns were selected and the heavy and light chains
sequenced using a Sequenase kit (USB) or using a Taq DyeDeoxy
Terminator Cycle Sequencing kit (Applied Biosystems) and an Applied
Biosystems 373A DNA sequencer.
[0192] Sequenced clones were further analysed using the program
MacVector 3.5 (IBI Kodak, New Haven, Conn.). The VH genes were
compared to the 83 germline gene segments present in the VH
directory compiled by Tomlinson et al. (J. Mol. Biol. 227 776-798,
1992). VL genes were compared with 34 published kappa germline gene
segments and 13 published lambda gene segments. Regions of the
V-genes encoded by PCR primers were not included in the
analysis.
The Selected Human Antibody Fragments Show High Specificity Against
Self-Antigens
[0193] After two to five rounds of selection, E. coli cells were
infected with eluted phage and antibody fragments produced by
individual clones were screened for binding by ELISA. Phage
selected with the 20 amino acid MUC1 peptide (Price et al., 1990,
supra), which corresponds to a repeated motif in human MUC1 mucin
(tumour-associated polymorphic epithelial mucin or PEM) (Gendler et
al., 1988, supra; Gum et al., 1990, supra), were screened for
binding to human PEM and hence bind to both peptide and the
protein. The V-genes of clones with binding activities were
sequenced, and one clone identified for each antigen of CEA, PEM
and rsCD4 (Table I). The appearance of only low numbers of clones
binding to CEA, PEM and human recombinant soluble CD4 (rsCD4), even
after several rounds of selection, may reflect the use of VCS-M13
(stratagene) as helper phage (instead of M13DgIII helper used for
the other antigens). Populations of phage(mid) particles produced
by rescue with M13DgIII (which cannot produce pIII) have higher
average avidities than those produced by rescue with VCS-M13 (where
the wild-type pIII encoded by the helper phage can compete with
scFv-pIII fusions).
[0194] The scFv fragments were then screened for binding to a panel
of other protein antigens, and were found to be highly specific.
This is illustrated in FIG. 2A with the single clones with binding
activity to human CEA, MUC1 and human rsCD4. See brief description
of FIG. 2 (supra) for key.
[0195] Hence, antibody fragments directed against the human self
antigens CEA and MUC1 (which are tumour markers) and rsCD4 can be
derived from the same library and they all have a high specificity
for antigen.
EXAMPLE 4
Characterisation of Antiself Antibody Fragments by DNA Sequencing
and Binding to Antigen
[0196] The antiself antibody fragments isolated in examples 1, 2
and 3 were characterized by DNA sequencing and antigen binding.
The Antibody Fragments are Derived from a Range of Unmutated and
Somatically Mutated V-Genes
[0197] The sequences of several clones with self-specificity were
determined as in example 3 and contain both kappa and lambda light
chains (Table II). Comparison with the sequences of the nearest
germ-line V-gene segments indicates that several different families
are used (VH1, 3, 4 and 5; Vk1 and 4, Vl1, 2 and 3). In a few cases
the V-genes are completely germline, for example both the VH and V1
genes of aThy-29. However, most of the V-genes have several
differences from the nearest germline V-gene segments, both at the
nucleotide and amino-acid level (Table II), suggesting that they
are derived from somatically mutated B-cells. Some mutations may
have arisen during the PCR amplification and assembly process, for
example the VH-genes of aFOG1-G8 and aMUC1-1, and the Vk-gene of
aThy-33 probably arose from cross-overs between two V-genes during
PCR amplification (Table II). Furthermore, large differences (for
example the Vk of aFOG1-H6 which differs by 36 nucleotides) may be
due to the use of unknown V-gene segments. There is a striking
homology in the CDR3 of the heavy chain between aTNF-A1 and
aTNF-E1: the germline V-genes are different but the same JH
segments are used, and 11/16 residues of CDR3 are identical. This
suggests that both scFv fragments may bind to the same epitope of
TNF.
The Antibody Fragments are Directed to Different Epitopes on the
Same Protein
[0198] The scFv fragments directed against bovine thyroglobulin
from example 2 were screened for binding to human thyroglobulin,
which differs by only 6 single amino-acid residues in the protomer
(Malthiery, Y. and Lissitzky, S. (1987) Eur. J. Biochem., 165,
491-498). Four of the twelve clones (including aThy-29) bound to
human thyroglobulin, whereas the rest (including aThy-32 and
aThy-33) did not (data not shown). Likewise the fragments binding
to the human antibody Fog-1 were screened for binding to a range of
other antibodies differing in heavy and light chain isotype (FIGS.
3A-3C). See brief description of FIGS. 3A-3C for its key (supra).
The fragment aFOG1-A4 bound to all heavy chain g1, 2 and 3
isotypes, but not to g4 or m. By contrast, the fragments aFOG1-H6
and aFOG1-A3 did not bind to any of the other antibodies, including
those of the same isotype as Fog-1, suggesting that they are
directed to the variable domain of Fog-1.
Characterisation of Selected scFv Fragments
[0199] The following clones were chosen for large scale
purification and further characterisation: a FOG1-H6, aFOG1-A3,
aTNF-E7, and aThy-29. Colonies of the non-suppressor E. coli strain
HB2151 harbouring the appropriate phagemid were used to inoculate 2
litres of 2.times.TY containing 100 .mu.g ampicillin/ml and 0.1%
glucose. The cultures were grown and induced (De Bellis, D. and
Schwartz, I. (1990) Nucleic Acids Res., 18, 1311) and the tagged
scFv fragments purified using the mAb 9E10 as in (Clackson et al.,
1991, supra and WO92/01047).
[0200] The inhibition of 125I-Fog-1 binding to human Rh D antigen
by the affinity purified scFv fragments aFOG1-H6 and aFOG1-A3 was
essentially as preformed earlier (Gorick, B. D., Thompson, K. M.,
Melamed, M. D. and Hughes, J. N. (1988) Vox. Sang., 55, 165-170)
with the following modifications. 0.0148 .mu.g of 125I-FOG1 was
pre-incubated with varying amounts of purified aFOG1-H6 or aFOG1-A3
scFv fragments (0-16 .mu.g) at 37.degree. C. for 1.5 hours, before
adding 0.5 .mu.l of R1R2 cells (or rr cells as control). The
mixture was then incubated for a further 1.5 hours at 37.degree. C.
with constant mixing, and finally cells separated from the
supernatant. As a control, a titration was also performed with a
purified scFv fragment directed against turkey egg white lysozyme
(aTEL9) (Marks et al., 1991, supra).
[0201] Kinetic measurements were made using surface plasmon
resonance (BIACORE (biosensor instrument) Pharmacia, Milton Keynes,
UK) (Jonsson, U., Fagerstam, L., Ivarsson, B., Lundh, K., Lofas,
S., Persson, B., Roos, H., Ronnberg, I., Sjolander, S., Stenberg,
E., Stahlberg, R., Urbaniczky, C., Ostlin, H. and Malmqvist, M.
(1991) BioTechniques, 11, 620-627; Jonsson, U. and Malmqvist, M.
(1992) In Turner, A. (ed.), Real Time Biospecific Interaction. JAI
Press Ltd., San Diego, Vol. 2, pp. 291-336). In order to separate
monomeric and multimeric species, the purified scFv fragments were
concentrated by ultrafiltration and then fractionated on a
calibrated SUPERDEX 75 FPLC column (Pharmacia, Milton Keynes,
Herts, UK) in PBS, 0.2 mM EDTA. Gel filtration was monitored both
by the absorbance at 280 nm and on-line to BIACORE (biosensor
instrument) Pharmacia, Milton Keynes, UK with immobilised antigen
on the sensor chip (Johnsson et al., 1991).
[0202] Kinetic experiments were performed in two different
configurations. First, to analyse the binding of soluble scFv, the
different antigens were covalently immobilized on the sensor chip
(in the case of mAB Fog-1, the antibody was also immobilised via a
mouse anti-human kappa light chain mAb using a sensor chip coated
with rabbit anti-mouse IgG1). Second, to analyse the binding of the
soluble mAb FOG-1, the aFOG1-H6 scFv was immobilised on the chip
surface.
[0203] The antigens were coupled to the CM5 sensor chip through
their amine groups using the Amine Coupling Kit (Pharmacia
Biosensor AB) (Johnsson, B., Lofas, S. and Lindqvist, G. (1991)
Anal. Biochem., 198, 268-277). The antigens were diluted in 10 mM
acetate buffer pH 5.0 to approx. 25 .mu.g/ml, and 3805 resonance
units (RU) of TNF, 6249 RU of human thyroglobulin, and 5279 RU of
FOG1 were immobilised. For the biospecific presentation of Fog-1,
affinity purified rabbit anti-mouse IgG1 (Pharmacia Biosensor AB)
was coupled to the surface followed by a mouse mAb anti-human kappa
(2300 RU) and then Fog-1 (2050 RU). As binding of the rabbit
anti-mouse IgG1 to the mouse mAb was reversible by 10 mM HCl the
complex was rebuilt for each analytical cycle. Scfv anti-Fog-1 was
coupled to the CM5 surface to 1538 RU. All determinations were
performed at 25.degree. C. in PBS, 0.2 mM EDTA, 0.05% BIACORE
surfactant P20 (biosensor instrument, Pharmacia, Milton Keynes, UK)
with a constant flow-rate of 10 .mu.l/min. and an injected volume
sample of 35 .mu.l. It was not necessary to regenerate the antigen
as the scFv fragments rapidly dissociate, with the exception of the
biospecific presentation of antigen via rabbit anti-mouse IgG1
which was regenerated with 10 mM HCl for 3 min.
[0204] Analyses of scFv monomer were performed in the concentration
range 100-500 nM, and dimers in the range 40-200 nM except for the
biospecifically presented Fog-1 where the concentration of dimeric
scFv was 0.25-1.26 .mu.m. Fog-1 was analysed on the aFOG1-H6 scFv
surface in the concentration range 10-200 nM. All concentrations
were calculated from U.V. absorption at 280 nm (assuming that 0.7
mg/ml scFv gives an A280=1 [Mach, H., Middaugh, C. R. and Lewis, R.
V. (1992) Anal. Biochem., 200, 74-80], and that Mr of a scFv
monomer is 30 kD and of a dimer is 60 kD). No correction was made
for the fraction of active protein, and therefore the on-rates are
an underestimate. The kinetic evaluation of data was preformed
according to (Karlsson, R., Michaelsson, A. and Mattsson, L. (1991)
J. Immunol. Methods, 145, 229-240) and evaluated on the program
Origin 1.1 (Microcal Inc., Northampton, Mass., USA).
Two of the Antibody Fragments are Directed Against Idiotopes of
Human mAb Fog-1
[0205] The binding of 125I-Fog-1 antibody to human red blood cells
bearing the Rh D antigen could be inhibited by both aFOG1-H6 and
aFOG1-A3 scFv fragments. Hence, both aFOG1-H6 and aFOG1-A3 are
site-associated anti-idiotype antibodies, complexing with the
antigen-binding site of Fog-1. The extent of inhibition of
125I-Fog-1 binding to the Rh D antigen (on human R1R2 red blood
cells) was determined by titration with affinity purified aFOG1-H6
and aFOG1-A3 scFv fragments. (As control, no inhibition of
125I-Fog-1 binding was observed using a scFv fragment (aTEL9)
(Marks et al., 1991, supra) directed against turkey egg white
lysozyme). With the maximum of 16 .mu.g scFv (1000 fold molar
excess to 125I-Fog-1), the binding was inhibited by 14.2%
(aFOG1-H6) and 20.9% (aFOG1-A3), suggesting that the affinities of
these fragments for Fog-1 are much lower than the affinity of Fog-1
for the Rh D antigen (Ka=2.2.times.10.sup.9 M.sup.-1) which binds
monovalently (Gorick et al., 1988, supra). If 100% of the fragments
are active, the affinities of the two fragments for binding to
Fog-1 could be estimated as Ka=3.times.10.sup.5 M-1 for aFog1-H6
and 6.times.10.sup.5 M.sup.-1 for aFOG1-A3, and this is consistent
with other kinetic measurements (see below and Table III).
The scFv Fragments can Form Both Monomers and Dimers in
Solution
[0206] Soluble antibody fragments were purified from bacterial
supernatants by affinity chromatography, by binding of the
C-terminal peptide tag to the mAb 9E10. After ultrafiltration, the
fragments were further purified by FPLC gel filtration (Pharmacia)
on SUPERDEX 75 FPLC column (Pharmacia, Milton Keynes, Herts, UK),
and detected on-line both by UV absorption (280 nm) and by binding
to antigen immobilised on a sensor chip in BIACOARE (Pharmacia
Biosensor AB, biosensor instrument, Pharmacia, Milton Keynes, UK).
This showed that the scFv fragments emerged in two peaks,
corresponding in size to monomers and dimers. The dimers bind more
strongly to the immobilised antigen than monomers due to their
greater avidity of binding. The scFv dimers run as monomers on
non-reducing SDS gels, and are therefore not linked by disulphide
bonds. As two peaks are seen in gel-filtration, it appears that in
this case the monomers and dimers do not interconvert rapidly.
Presumably the dimers are scFv fragments interlocked through the
flexible linker joining the heavy and light chains, or with the
heavy chain of one scFv molecule associated with the light chain of
the other. We note that antibody Fab fragments made in bacteria can
also multimerize (unpublished data).
The scFv Fragments have Micromolar Affinities
[0207] The presence of both scFv monomers and dimers could lead to
an overestimate of affinity of binding using solid phase methods.
To determine the affinity and kinetics of binding of scFv fragments
to the antigen coated chip using surface plasmon resonance, we
therefore purified the fragments by gel filtration (Table III). For
the dimers, the off-rate constants were determined as about
10.sup.-2 s.sup.-1 and the on-rate constants for the scFv dimers as
about 10.sup.5-10.sup.6 M.sup.-1 s.sup.-1 (assuming the sample is
completely active). In the case of aFOG1-H6, the antigen (the mAb
Fog-1) was immobilised on the sensor chip in two ways, either
directly or via a rabbit anti-mouse IgG1 antibody. The results were
almost identical by either method (see Table III). However the
active fraction of scFv fragments varies considerably and could
lead to an underestimate of the on-rate (and affinity of binding);
for example using fluorescence quench titration with several scFv
fragments directed against phenyloxazolone we detected only 0.06 to
0.38 functional binding sites per scFv molecule (unpublished data).
Indeed the on-rate constants calculated for the association of the
aFOG1-H6 fragment and Fog-1 antibody depend on whether the antibody
(k.sub.on2.2.times.10.sup.5 M.sup.-1 s.sup.-1) or scFv fragment
(k.sub.on1.0.times.10.sup.6 M.sup.-1 s.sup.-1) is immobilised on
the sensor chip (Table III), indicating that the aFOG1-H6 fragment
is less active than the Fog-1 antibody. For the scFv monomers, the
binding signals were low and it was difficult to follow the
kinetics of binding to the surface, except for the dissociation of
the aThy-29 monomer (k.sub.off=2.times.10.sup.-2 s.sup.-1).
However, the four fold stabilisation of the aThy-29 fragment dimer
(see below), suggests that the off-rate constants of the other
monomers are >10-.sup.2 s.sup.-1, perhaps 10.sup.-1
s.sup.-1.
[0208] The greater stability of the scFv dimers on the sensor chip,
compared to monomers, indicates that the dimers are bivalent. The
scFv dimers are therefore analogous to the two heads of the
antibody IgG (but with different spacing between the heads), and
their binding avidities were estimated as about 10.sup.7 M.sup.-1
from k.sub.on/k.sub.off (Table III). The affinities of the monomers
must be lower by virtue of their faster dissociation from the
surface. For the aThy-29 monomer, and assuming that the on-rate
constant is the same as for the dimer (Mason, D. W. and Williams,
A. F. (1986) Kinetics of Antibody Reactions and the Analysis of
Cell Surface Antigens. Blackwell Scientific, Oxford), we can
estimate an affinity of about 3.times.10.sup.6 M.sup.-1. These
affinities, calculated from the rate constants measured by surface
plasmon resonance appear to be similar to those measured in
solution by fluorescence quench techniques. For example the
affinity of binding of the monomer scFv fragment aTEL9 (Marks et
al., 1991) which binds to turkey lysozyme (and was derived from the
same library) was estimated as 3.9.times.10.sup.7 M.sup.-1 using
surface plasmon resonance (Table III), and as 1.2.times.10.sup.7
M.sup.-1 by fluorescence quench (Marks et al., 1991, supra).
[0209] The affinities of antibodies isolated are typical of
antibodies from the mouse primary immune response (Foote, J. and
Milstein, C. (1991) Nature, 352, 530-532). The kinetics of
association of the antibody fragments to the protein self-antigens
(10.sup.5 to 10.sup.6 M.sup.-1 s.sup.-1) are also typical of
previously characterised Ab-protein interactions. However the
kinetics of dissociation (10.sup.-2 s.sup.-1) are relatively fast
for Ab-protein interactions (but both rates are slow compared to
many Ab-hapten interactions). At first sight, it is surprising that
we can isolate scFv fragments with such fast off-rates, as one
would not expect a "monomeric" phage to be retained on the solid
support during washing. However, scFv fragments are displayed
multivalently on the phage, especially using the M13DgIII helper
phage, and some of the scFvs which tend to form dimers in solution,
may also form dimers on phage. The multivalent interactions with
antigen help retain the phage, allowing the encoded scFv phage to
be isolated.
[0210] Random combinatorial V-gene repertoires derived from the
mRNA of immunised animals are enriched for heavy or light chain
V-genes encoding part of an antigen binding site and this
facilitates the isolation of antigen-binding fragments using phage
technology, although the combinations of V-genes of each
B-lymphocyte appear to be largely destroyed. Antigen binding sites
can also be generated de novo by the random combination of chains,
as illustrated by the isolation of scFv fragments against foreign
antigens from unimmunised human donors (Marks et al., 1991,
supra)
[0211] "Natural autoantibodies", self-reactive antibodies isolated
from healthy donors tend to be of low affinity and polyspecific and
may well be produced by a discrete subset of B-cells, the internal
activity set (Holmberg, D. and Coutinho, A. (1985) lmmunol. Today,
6, 356-357), contributed in part by CD5+ B-cells (Casali, P. and
Notkins, A. L. (1989) Annu. Rev. Immunol., 7, 513-535). In
contrast, the anti-self scFv fragments we have made are highly
specific in binding to antigen despite only having micromolar
affinities. This is a surprising and valuable finding. Their
affinities could presumably be improved in vitro, for example, the
affinity of an scFv fragment for the hapten phenyloxazolone derived
from the phage library (and, like the anti-self antibodies
described here, with a relatively fast off-rate) was improved from
Ka=3.1.times.10.sup.6 M.sup.-1 to 9.1.times.10.sup.8 M.sup.-1 by
chain shuffling (WO92/01047; Marks et al., 1992b, Biotechnology 10,
779-783, 1992). This would allow the creation of highly specific,
high affinity human antibodies directed against self-antigens for
use in human therapy.
EXAMPLE 5
Creation of a Synthetic Library
[0212] By display of antibody repertoires on the surface of
filamentous phage and selection of the phage with antigen.sup.1, we
can mimic immune selection.sup.2,3 and make human antibodies from
the rearranged V-genes of unimmunised donors.sup.4. Human
antibodies have now been made by synthesis from defined V-gene
elements. A repertoire of 49 human germ line V.sub.H gene segments
was rearranged in vitro by joining to a synthetic "D-segment" of
five random amino acid residues and a J-segment, to create a
synthetic third complementarity determining region (CDR) of eight
residues. The rearranged V.sub.H genes were cloned with a human
Vlambda3 light chain as single-chain Fv fragments for phage
display. The library of 10.sup.7 phages was panned with a hapten
2-phenyl-oxazol-5-one (phOx) conjugate to bovine serum albumin
(BSA), and phage isolated that encoded fragments with specific
binding activity to phOx-BSA, and with affinities to
phOx-gamma-aminobutyric acid (phOx-GABA) in the micromolar range.
Comparison of twenty one clones with unique sequences showed that
the in vitro "immune response" to the hapten was largely restricted
to the V.sub.H26 segment (V.sub.H3 family).sup.6 with an invariant
aromatic residue (Tyr, Phe, Trp) at residue 98 of CDR3. The use of
V-genes rearranged in vitro may allow the design of antibody
libraries biased towards the binding of antigens of known
structure, and the creation of therapeutic human antibodies with
reduced immunogenicity.
[0213] Antibody variable domains consist of a .beta.-sheet
framework with three loops of hypervariable sequence or CDRs5. The
loops create antigen binding sites of a variety of shapes, ranging
from flat surfaces.sup.7 to pockets.sup.8. For human heavy chains,
the sequence diversity of the first two CDRs are encoded by a
repertoire of about fifty germ line V.sub.H segments. (I. M.
Tomlinson et al., supra). The third CDR is generated from the
recombination of these segments with about thirty D and six J
segments.sup.9, and although its sequence is highly variable, it
often includes a salt bridge from Asp101 of the loop to Arg94 of
the framework.sup.10. The structures and lengths of the first two
CDRs are restricted.sup.10,11, but those of CDR3 differ greatly,
with lengths ranging from 4 to 25 residues.sup.5.
[0214] A library was created of rearranged V.sub.H genes with a
CDR3 of eight residues including Asp101, in combination with a
single Vlambda (ref.12) light chain. Forty nine germ line V.sub.H
segments encoding most of the human V.sub.H repertoire (Tomlinson
et al., supra) were each amplified using the polymerase chain
reaction.sup.13 and oligonucleotide primers that introduce a
synthetic D-segment (of 15 bases of random sequence at the 3' end
of the V.sup.H segment) and a J-segment, together encoding a CDR3
loop of eight residues (FIG. 4). The rearranged segments were
pooled and cloned for phage display with a human Vlambda3 light
chain, creating a synthetic library of 10.sup.7 phage clones. Like
the immune system, the synthetic library of 10.sup.7 phage clones
can tap only a small fraction of the potential diversity. Thus the
diversity is potentially 49.times.32.sup.5-1.6.times.10.sup.9
different nucleotide sequences, or
49.times.20.sup.5=1.6.times.10.sup.8 different amino acid
sequences.
[0215] The library was subjected to four rounds of growth and
panning on phOx-bovine serum albumin (BSA) coated tubes, and clones
screened as soluble.sup.14 single chain Fv fragments.sup.15,16 for
binding activity to phOx-BSA by ELISA.sup.4. After the third and
fourth rounds, 14/96 and 61/96 clones respectively were identified
with binding activities to phOx-BSA and of these (29 tested) none
bound to other proteins (see legend Table B). Furthermore their
binding to phOx-BSA coated plates could be competed with the
soluble hapten (Table B).
[0216] Sequencing revealed that many (21/29) of the phOx binders
were unique, with an eight residue CDR3, and utilised either a
segment from the V.sub.H4 family, or one of three segments from the
V.sub.H3 family (Table B). Together these segments use three of the
seven "canonical" folds available to the first two hypervariable
loops of human V.sub.H segments. (C. Chothia, et al., supra). The
majority of the unique clones (16/21) were derived from the VH26
segment.sup.6 and have related sequences in the third hypervariable
loop: in this group the first residue tends to have a branched
aliphatic side chain (15/16), the second residue tends to be lysine
or arginine (11/16), while the fourth residue is always an aromatic
residue (most frequently tyrosine).
[0217] The affinities (K.sub.d) of two of the stronger binders (Ox
13 and Ox-31, Table B) for phOx-GABA were determined by
fluorescence quench titration.sup.17 as 3.1.+-.0.2 .mu.M and
6.7.+-.0.7 .mu.M respectively. Although the synthetic antibody
library lacks the diverse VH-CDR3 lengths and the different light
chains of antibodies made in vivo, the affinities for phOx-GABA
compare with 0.5 .mu.M for a (phage) antibody made from unimmunised
human donors.sup.4, or 1 .mu.M for several hybridomas from a mouse
primary immune response.sup.18 (but see caveat, Table A legend). To
improve these affinities, one could systematically alter (see
below) the many different phOx antibodies selected (Table A).
[0218] In principle, the use of phage display libraries of V-genes
rearranged in vitro offers an attractive alternative to those
rearranged in vivo.sup.4. Firstly the framework regions and first
two hypervariable loops of both heavy and light chains of the
synthetic human antibodies created from the library are essentially
germ line. This contrasts with the "primary" phage antibodies
tapped from human V-genes rearranged in vivo, in which the extent
of somatic mutation varied widely.sup.4. Leaving aside
polymorphism, the VH gene segments are identical in different
individuals, and the synthetic antibodies are potentially less
immunogenic. By altering the lengths and sequences of the heavy and
light chain CDR3 loops, or by localising the minimal mutations in
the other CDR loops, or by shuffling with synthetic "germ line"
light chains.sup.19, 20, it may be possible to improve their
affinities while retaining their germ line character.
[0219] Secondly both kinds of libraries are highly biased. In the
"natural" libraries, the bias is outside our control, and is
imposed for example by allelic variation, deletion polymorphism and
deletion of self-reactive clones. In the synthetic library, the
bias can be introduced systematically. Here for example, all the
VH-gene segments, were chosen and thereby the folding of the first
and second hypervariable loops: also fixed were the length and
diversity of VH-CDR3 and the light chain. Although several ways of
making diverse synthetic libraries have been suggested.sup.2, it
should also be possible to incorporate design principles into the
encoded structures. If the shape of the antigen were known, an
envelope of roughly complementary binding sites might be designed
and built with defined V-gene elements. Use of such "designer"
libraries would favour the isolation of antibodies with higher
affinities.
TABLE-US-00001 TABLE A No. of size Family genes VH segments*
Library .times.10.sup.-6 (%) V.sub.H1 14 1-5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15,
20, 21, 25 2.3 (20) V.sub.H2 1 27 1.0 (9) V.sub.H3 23 29-33, 35,
38-40, 42, 44-54, 58, 59 2.1 (19) V.sub.H4 9 63-71 2.6 (23)
V.sub.H5 1 73 1.4 (12) V.sub.H6 1 74 1.9 (17) Total: 49 11.3 (100)
*for simplicity V.sub.H segments are listed according to DP
nomenclature of Tomlinson et al., supra.
Table A--Composition of the Synthetic Library
[0220] Forty nine human V.sub.H segments (Tomlinson et al, supra)
were used, one for each of the V.sub.H2, V.sub.H5 and V.sub.H6 gene
families and multiple segments for the other three families, and
cloned according to family. Clones from the V.sub.H segments of
each family were checked for presence of insert (on average 85%)
and pooled into a single large library as in Table B, creating a
(controlled) bias for certain gene families. The segments from the
V.sub.H2, V.sub.H5, V.sub.H6 families are thereby "overrepresented"
with respect to the segments from other families. Sequencing of
thirty five clones from the unselected library confirmed that
V.sub.H segments from each family were present, and that the
nucleotides were present in the expected ratios in the D-segment,
but with a slight bias for C. (At the first and second position of
each codon. A, 21.3%; G, 17.9%; C33.7% and T, 27.1%; at the third
position, G, 42.6% and T, 57.4%). The expression levels of the
antibody fragments were also checked, and V.sub.H segments were
identified in clones with detectable expression levels, for example
V.sub.H1 (DP-7), V.sub.H2 (DP-27), V.sub.H3
(DP-29,35,38,44,47,51,53), V.sub.H4 (DP-63, 69), V.sub.H5 (DP-73)
and V.sub.H6 (DP-74).
Methods
[0221] The clones were checked for presence of insert by
`PCR-screening`.sup.21 with oligonucleotides LMB3 and pHEN-SEQ
(ref.4) and sequenced from double-stranded DNA by the dideoxy chain
termination method.sup.22 with oligonucleotide LINKSEQ (SEQ ID
NO.:21) (5'-CGA TCC GCC ACC GCC AGA G-3'). (The numbers in the
tables are corrected for insert). Expression of soluble scFv
fragments was checked by spotting 10 .mu.l, supernatant of induced
overnight cultures in E. coli HB2151 (ref. 14) onto a
nitrocellulose filter using a slot-blot device (Minifold II,
Schleicher and Schuell), and detecting the bound peptide-tagged
scFv fragments with 9E10 antibody.sup.23 and peroxidase labelled
anti-mouse antibodies (Sigma Chemicals, Poole, Dorset, UK).
TABLE-US-00002 TABLE B Germline Canonical Loop Clone Family gene*
structure* I.sub.50.sup..phi. Ox-31 V.sub.H3 DP-42 1-1 26 Ox-15
V.sub.H3 DP-45 1-1 >300 Ox-18 '' '' '' >300 Ox-33 V.sub.H3
DP-47 1-3 20 Ox-13 '' '' '' 50 Ox-9 '' '' '' 80 Ox-7 '' '' '' 86
Ox-30 '' '' '' 86 Ox-12 '' '' '' 86 Ox-5 '' '' '' 100 Ox-3 '' '' ''
125 Ox-20 '' '' '' 125 Ox-21 '' '' '' 125 Ox-4 '' '' '' 130 Ox-10
'' '' '' 150 Ox-14 '' '' '' 180 Ox-19 '' '' '' 250 Ox-25 '' '' ''
>400 Ox-27 '' '' '' Ox-2.sup..sctn. V.sub.H4 DP-67 2-1 >400
Ox-1 '' '' '' >400 *Tomlinson et al., supra, Chothia et al.,
supra. .sup..phi.in .mu.M, according to competition ELISA with
phOx-GABA. .sup..sctn.shows V67A mutation in FR3. Not
determined.
Table B--phOx-Binders Isolated from the Synthetic Library
[0222] Phage were prepared from the library by rescue with VCS-M13,
and subjected to rounds of panning in phOx-BSA coated tubes as in
ref.4. The sequences of 21 phage binding to phOx revealed four germ
line VH segments, DP-42,45,47 (VH3 family) and DP-67 (VH4 family).
DP-47 is identical to VH26 (ref.5, corrected in ref. 24), while
DP-42, DP-45 and DP-67 only differ in one or a few framework
residues from 8-1B (ref. 25), 65-2 (ref. 26) or VH4.22 (ref. 27)
respectively. Clones from the unselected library using the DP47
V.sup.H segment and lacking the characteristic pattern of CDR3 did
not bind to phOx. Of the 21 phOx binders tested, none bound to BSA,
NIP-BSA, plastic, chymotrypsinogen A, cytochrome c, bovine
thyroglobulin, keyhole limpet haemocyanin or turkey egg white
lysozyme. Four clones that bound to BSA (but not to phOx) were
found to be contaminants (.alpha.BSA3 clones, from ref.4).
Methods
[0223] As in ref. 4. The relative affinities of the scFv fragments
were determined by inhibition ELISA.sup.28. A serial dilution of
4-gamma-amino-butyric acid methylene 2-phenyl-oxazol-5-one
(phOx-GABA), with concentrations ranging from 6 to 400 .mu.M, was
made in 4% Marvel-PBS, and scFv supernatant added. The
concentration of phOx-GABA resulting in a 50% reduction of the
signal (I.sub.50) for binding to phOx-ESA was noted. The affinities
of the clones Ox-13 and Ox-31 for phOx-GABA were determined by
fluorescence quench titration using scFv purified by the c-myc tag
(ref.4). Ideally, the affinity for the phOx-BSA conjugate would
have been measured directly, or that for phOx-caproic acid, but
phOx-GABA was used here to allow comparison with the hybridoma data
of ref.18. The affinities of the antibodies for the phOx conjugate,
or for phOx-caproic acid are likely to be better than those
measured for phOx-GABA.
FIG. 4--Shows the Assembly of Rearranged VH Genes
[0224] (see text)
Methods
[0225] A synthetic oligonucleotide SYNLIB1 (see (SEQ ID NO.: 1)
Table IV) introduced a D-segment with a five residue random amino
acid sequence, a J-segment and an XhoI restriction site, to the 3'
end of each of 49 human V.sub.H germline segments (Tomlinson et
al., supra). The primer was used in the polymerase chain
reaction.sup.13 with a V.sub.H family based back primers (VHBACK)
incorporating an NcoI site.sup.4, HuVH1BackSfi (SEQ ID NO.:15) to
HuVH6BackSfi (SEQ ID NO.:20). Each V.sub.H segment clone (provided
as single stranded template in M13 vector) was amplified separately
at 94.degree. C. for 1 min, 50.degree. C. for 1 min, and 72.degree.
C. for 1.5 min, for 25 cycles, on a PHC-3 thermocycler (Techne).
Each amplification was checked by electrophoresis on agarose gel,
and similar amounts of DNA from V.sub.H segments of the same family
were pooled, digested with NcoI and XhoI, and cloned into the
vector pHEN1 (ref.14) carrying a rearranged Vlambda3 light chain
variable domain (IGLV3S1; ref.12) taken from a scFv fragment
binding to BSA.sup.4.
[0226] If, instead of a random oligonucleotide, an oligonucleotide
encoding a CDR, eg from a rodent, were used, this would imprint
that non-human CDR on the product synthetic human library.
REFERENCE MENTIONED IN EXAMPLE 5
[0227] 1. McCafferty, J., Griffiths, A. D., Winter, G. &
Chiswell D. J. (1990). Nature, 348, 552-554.
[0228] 2. Milstein, C. (1990). Proc R Soc Lond Biol, 239, 1-16.
[0229] 3. Winter, G. & Milstein, C (1991). Nature, 349,
293-299.
[0230] 4. Marks, J. D., et al (1991). J Mol Biol, 222, 581-597.
[0231] 5. Kabat, E. A., Wu, T. T., Reid-Miller, M., Perry, H. M.
& Gottesman, K. S. Sequences of proteins of immunological
interest (US Department of Health and Human Services, US Government
Printing Office, 1987).
[0232] 6. Matthyssens, G. & Rabbits, T. H. (1980). Proc Natl
Acad Sci USA, 77, 6561-6565.
[0233] 7. Amit, A. G., Mariuzza, R. A., Phillips, S. E. &
Poljak, R. J. (1986). Science, 233, 747-753.
[0234] 8. Alzari, P. M., et al (1990). Embo J, 9, 3807-3614.
[0235] 9. Ichihara, Y., Matsuoka, H. & Iurosawa, Y (1988). Embo
J, 7, 4141-4150.
[0236] 10. Chothia, C. & Lesk, A. M. (1987). J Mol Biol, 196,
901-917.
[0237] 11. Chothia, C., et al (1989). Nature, 342, 877-883.
[0238] 12. Frippiat, J. P., et al (1990). Nucleic Acids Res, 18,
7134.
[0239] 13. Saiki, R. K., et al (1985). Science, 230, 1350-1354.
[0240] 14. Hoogenboom, H. R., et al (1991). Nucleic Acids Res, 19,
4133-4137.
[0241] 15. Huston, J. S., et al (1988). Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 85,
5879-5883.
[0242] 16. Bird, R. E., et al (1988). Science, 242, 423-426.
[0243] 17. Eisen, H. N. (1964), Meth Med Research, 10, 115-121.
[0244] 18. Foote, J. & Milstein, C. (1991), Nature, 352,
530-532.
[0245] 19. Clackson, T., Hoogenboom, H. R., Griffiths, A. D. &
Winter, G (1991). Nature, 352, 624-628.
[0246] 20. Roberts, A. J., et al (1992), Bio/Technology, in
press.
[0247] 21. Gussow, D. & Clackson, T. (1989), Nucleic Acids Res,
17, 4000.
[0248] 22. Sanger, F., Nicklen, S. & Coulson, A. R. (1977),
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 74, 5463-5467.
[0249] 23. Munro, S. & Pelham, H. R. B. (1986), Cell, 46,
291-300.
[0250] 24. Chen, P. P., Liu, M. F., Sinha, S. & Carson, D. A.
(1988), Arthritis Rheum, 31, 1429-1431.
[0251] 25. Berman, J. E., et al (1988), Embo J, 7, 727-738.
[0252] 26. Matsuda, F., et al (1990), Embo J, 9, 2501-2506.
[0253] 27. Sanz, I., et al (1989), Embo J, 8, 3741-3748.
[0254] 28. Rath, S., Stanley, C. M. & Steward, M. W. (1988), J
Immunol Methods, 106, 245-249.
EXAMPLE 6
[0255] Isolation of Antibody Fragments Specific for Tumour Necrosis
Factor-a from a Germ Line Human Synthetic Library
[0256] A clone encoding an antibody fragment specific for tumour
necrosis factor-.alpha. was isolated from a germ line human
synthetic library. This library was prepared as described in
example 5, except that the oligonucleotide SYNLIB2 (SEQ ID NO.:2)
was used in place of SYNLIB1 (SEQ ID NO.:1), so that a 5 amino acid
V.sub.H CDR3 was generated. The library was panned against tumour
necrosis factor-.alpha., as described in example 1 for the library
derived from unimmunised humans. After four rounds of panning a
phage antibody (and corresponding soluble fragment) was isolated
with binding activity to TNF. The V.sub.H region of the scFv
fragment (.alpha.TNF-10) was derived from the VH segment DP-45
(Tomlinson et al, 1992, supra). The hapten binding clones
.alpha.NIP-6, .alpha.NIP-12, .alpha.Ox-15 and .alpha.Ox-18 are also
derived from this segment, although each of these fragments were
nevertheless specific for binding to hapten or TNF. This indicates
that antigen binding sites with entirely different specificities
can be created on the same antibody framework by substitution of
CDR3 alone. Binding to non-specific antigens was assessed by ELISA
as described in example 1.
EXAMPLE 7
[0257] Isolation of Single Chain Fv Fragments Binding to Human
Thyroglobulin and a Human Monoclonal Antibody from a Germ Line
Human Synthetic Library Containing VH CDR3 Sequences of Different
Lengths
[0258] A germ line human synthetic single chain Fv fragment library
was prepared in an analagous manner to the library in Example 5, to
include germ line VH segments and synthetic DH and JH regions,
generating VH CDR3 regions of between 4 and 12 amino acids. A
single germ line rearranged light chain was provided. This phage
library has been used as a source of antibody fragments with
anti-human specificities.
[0259] Fifty germ line gene VH segments (Tomlinson et al, 1991
supra, as in Example 5) were amplified with oligonucleotides to
introduce a completely randomised CDR3 varying in length from 4 to
12 residues. In a first PCR-reaction, each gene was amplified with
its family specific VHBACK-primer (one of VH1BACKSfi to VH6BACKSfi;
Marks et al, 1991 supra; WO92/01047) at the 5' end, and, annealing
at the 3' end, one of each of the oligonucleotides of the series
SYNLIB4-SYNLIB12 (SEQ ID NOS.:3-11) (Table IV). The PCR contained
2.5 pmol of each of the appropriate pair of oligonucleotides per 50
.mu.l reaction mix containing 250 .mu.M dNTPs, 10 mM KCl, 10 mM
(NH4).sub.2S0.sub.4, 20 mM TrisHCl (pH8.8), 2 mM MgCl2, 100
.mu.g/ml BSA and 1 .mu.l (1 unit) of TAQ DNA polymerase
(Cetus/Perkin Elmer, Beaconsfield, Bucks, UK). The template was 1
.mu.l of a bacterial stock of E. coli infected with a M13 phage
clone encoding the appropriate germ line V gene. The amplification
cycle was 94.degree. C. for 1 min, 55.degree. C. for 1 min and
72.degree. C. for 1.5 min. After 25 cycles, 30 pmol of the same
VHBACK oligonucleotide and 30 pmol of JHSAL (SEQ ID NO.:12) (Table
IV) was added, and the PCR continued for 15 cycles, introducing a
SalI cloning site at the 3' end of the VH-gene. After verifying
that a band of the appropriate size was seen on agarose gel
electrophoresis, the PCR products of all amplifications done with
the same SYNLIB primer were collected, cut with NcoI and SalI, and
cloned into NcoI-XhoI-cut pHEN1-V 3 (pHEN1 containing cloned
IGLV3S1) as in Example 5. In this way, 9 libraries (each with one
particular CDR3 length) were made, each containing between
5.times.10.sup.6 and 5.times.10.sup.7 clones.
Selection
[0260] Phage was prepared from the nine different libraries by
rescue with VCS-M13 as described in Example 3. Phage from the nine
individual libraries was mixed to give one large library and
subjected to panning on one of each of 2 antigens: Immunosorp tubes
were coated with OAK3 (human anti-Rhesus D antibody, IgG3, k)
overnight in carbonate buffer (0.1 M NaHCO.sub.3, pH 9.6 at 100
.mu.g/ml) or human thyroglobulin (coated at 100 .mu.g/ml in PBS).
Selections were preformed as in Example 3.
Screening
[0261] ELISA was performed as described in Hoogenboom et al, 1991
supra. ELISA plates were coated overnight with OAK3 at 100 .mu.g/ml
in PBS at room temperature or with human thyroglobulin at 100
.mu.g/ml at room temperature.
Results
[0262] After four rounds of selection on OAK3-coated tubes, eluted
phage was used to infect HB2151, and soluble scFv fragments
analysed for binding by ELISA. 59/96 clones were scored positive in
the OAK3 ELISA.
[0263] The germ line human synthetic library was also subjected to:
5 rounds of selection on human thyroglobulin coated tubes, 80/96
clones were found to be positive in a phage ELISA of individual
clones rescued with VCS-M13.
[0264] Two of each of the positive clones were analysed in ELISA
for binding against a range of antigens (OAK3, human thyroglobulin,
phOx-BSA, NIP-BSA, BSA, ovalbumin, chymotrypsinogen-A,
streptavidin, cytochrome c, KLH, turkey egg-white lysozyme). The
two OAK-3-binding clones (as soluble scFv fragments) both gave
signals approximately 3-fold higher than background in ELISA on
OAK3. The two thyroglobulin binding clones (as scFv fragments
displayed on phage) both gave signals approximately 5-fold higher
than background in thyroglobulin-ELISA. All the clones were found
to be highly specific for the antigen against which they had been
selected. By hybridisation to family-specific primers (J. D. Marks
et al, Eur. J. Immunol. 21 985-991 1991), the VH segment of all
four clones was identified to be of the VH3 family. The CDR3 length
of each clone was analysed by amplifying the CDR3 with
oliconucleotides CDRFOR (SEQ ID NO.:13) and CDRBACK (SEQ ID NO.:
14) (Table IV), and analysing the product on an 8% polyacrylamide
gel. For the two OAK3-binding clones, we found a length of 4 or 7
amino acid residues, while the thyroglobulin binding clones both
use a CDR3 length of 10 residues.
[0265] Hence, antibody scFv fragments binding to a human monoclonal
antibody and a human self antigen have been isolated from a human
germ line synthetic library.
EXAMPLE 8
Isolation of Antibody Fragments Triggering the Activity of the
Interleukin-1 Receptor
[0266] The library of single chain Fv fragments derived from an
unimmunised human that was described in Example 1 is used to select
antibodies which will trigger the activity of the interleukin-1
receptor. Antibody fragments are first isolated which bind to the
soluble external domain of the interleukin-1 receptor (IL-1R) of T
cells. Antibody clones that are thus identified are then analysed
in assays for interleukin-1 type biological activity. The IL-1R on
murine and human T cells is a highly homologous 80 kD cell surface
glycoprotein which binds both interleukin-1.alpha. and
interleukin-1.beta.. A cDNA clone encoding the N terminal 316 amino
acids of the murine receptor external domain has been expressed in
HeLa cells (S. K. Dower et al. J. Immunol. 142 4314-4320 1989). The
soluble IL1-R molecule thus expressed has been purified and shows
binding properties indistinguishable from the full length IL-1R
molecule, a complex being formed between a single soluble IL1-R
molecule and IL-1. This soluble receptor molecule binds to human
interleukin-1. The human T cell interleukin 1 receptor has been
cloned and sequenced by J. E. Sims et al (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
USA 86 8946-8950, 1989). The soluble external domain of the human
IL1 receptor, amino acids 1 to 316, is expressed in HeLa cells and
purified as described for the murine receptor.
[0267] The rescued unimmunised human library is first selected
against the recombinant human soluble IL-1 receptor, corresponding
to the external domain of the IL-1 receptor. Immunotubes are coated
with the soluble IL-1 receptor as described in Example 1 at 10 g/ml
and panning is performed as described in Example 1 for a total of
four rounds of affinity selection.
[0268] Clones binding to soluble IL-1 receptor are characterised by
ELISA using microtitre plates coated with recombinant soluble IL-1
receptor at 10 .mu.g/ml as described for TNF-.alpha. in Example 3.
Antibody fragments showing significant ELISA signals with soluble
IL-1 receptor but not with non-specific antigens are then chosen
for further study.
[0269] Antibody clones isolated in this way are then expressed as
soluble scFv fragments in E. Coli and purified as described in
Example 4 by mAb 9E10 affinity chromatography. Binding to human
receptors is assessed using binding of .sup.125I-labelled antibody
fragment to human fibroblast cell line TIG-1 expressing the
interleukin-1 receptor basically as described by T. Takii et al
(Eur. J. Immunol. 22 1221-1227 1992) for determining the affinity
of .sup.125I-IL1.alpha. for the receptor on these cell lines. The
purified antibody fragments that show receptor binding are used in
a biological screening assay using human epithelial cells to
examine them for stimulation of synthesis of prostacyclin (PGI2)
and platelet activating factor (PAF) as described by E. Dejana et
al (Blood 69 695-699, 1987). These studies will identify antibody
fragments which have an antiself specificity against IL-1 receptor
which triggers receptor activity. The activity can be quantified
relative to human interleukin-1.alpha. using a standard bioassay
for IL-1.alpha. for example proliferation of the D10S helper T cell
line using .sup.3H-thymidine incorporation (S. F. Orencole and C.
A. Dinarello Cytokine 1 14-22 1989) or a conversion proliferation
assay as described by A. J. Gearing et al (J. Immunol. Methods 99
7-11, 1987).
TABLE-US-00003 TABLE I Frequency of binding clones isolated from
the unimmunised scFv library after selection No. of Rounds of
selection unique Antigen 1 2 3 4 5 clones Thyroglobulin -- -- 18/40
-- -- 12 (bovine) Thyroglobulin -- -- 10/40 -- -- 4 (human):
selected on bovine Fog1 (human IgG1, -- -- -- 94/96 -- 4 k
antibody) TNF.alpha. (human) -- 122/1920 83/192 92/96 -- 7 CEA
(human) -- -- 0/96 1/96 2/96 1 MUC1 (human): -- -- -- 0/96 2/96 1
selected with peptide rsCD4 (human) -- -- -- -- 8/96 1
The ratios indicate the frequency of binding clones after each
round of selection. Phagemids were rescued with M13DgIII helper
phage, except for the CEA, MUC1 and rsCD4 selections, where VCS-M13
helper phage was used.
TABLE-US-00004 TABLE II V-gene family, germilne derivation and
extent of somatic hypermutation of several antigen-specific scFv
fragments isolated from the unimmunised library Germline gene of
closest Differences from nucleotide germline scFv Family sequence
Nucleotide Amino-acid HEAVY CHAINS .alpha.Thy-23 VH3 DP-47 13 8
.alpha.Thy-29 VH1 DP-14 0 0 .alpha.Thy-32 VH3 DP-31 5 2
.alpha.Thy-33 VH3 DP-49 32 19 .alpha.FOG1-A3 VH3 DP-54 7 3
.alpha.FOG1-A4 VH3 DP-46 7 7 .alpha.FOG1-H6 VH3 DP-51 10 4
.alpha.FOG1-G8.sup.a) VH4 DP-63 (FR1) 2 0 VH5 DP-73 (CDR1 15 7 to
FR3) .alpha.TNF-A1 VH3 DP-50 9 6 .alpha.TNF-E1 VH3 DP-46 14 6
.alpha.TNF-E7 VH1 DP-10 0 0 .alpha.TNF-H9G1 VH1 DP-4 1 1
.alpha.CEA4-8A VH1 DP-14 1 0 .alpha.MUC1-1.sup.a) VH1 VI-2 (FR1 2 0
to CDR2) VH1 DP-25 (FR3) 0 0 .alpha.CD4-74 VH5 DP-73 13 8 LIGHT
CHAINS .alpha.Thy-23 Vk1 L8 20 9 .alpha.Thy-29 V 3 IGLV3S1 0 0
.alpha.Thy-32 V 1 IGLV1S2 1 1 .alpha.Thy-33.sup.a) Vk1 L12 (FR1
& CDR1) 6 3 Vk4 B3 (FR2 to FR3) 5 5 .alpha.FOG1-A3 V 2 VL2.1 16
9 .alpha.FOG1-A4 Vk1 O4 25 12 .alpha.FOG1-H6 Vk1 L5 36 17
.alpha.FOG1-G8 Vk1 L8 27 14 .alpha.TNF-A1 Vk1 L11 12 8
.alpha.TNF-E1 Vk1 L5 5 5 .alpha.TNF-E7 Vk1 L11 17 8 .alpha.TNF-H9G1
V 1 IGLV1S2 18 9 .alpha.CEA4-8A Vk1 O2 4 0 .alpha.MUC1-1 V 2 VL-2.1
18 12 .alpha.CD4-74 V 1 Humlv1L1 23 17
[0270] References for all the heavy chain germline genes can be
found in Tomlinson et al. (1992). The references for the light
chains are VL2.1 (Brockly et al. 1989); IGLV1S2 (Bernard et al.
1990); IGLV3S1 (Frippiat et al. 1990); L8(Vd) and L5(Vb) (Pech et
al., 1984); L12(H102) (Bentley and Rabbits, 1980); B3(VKV) (Klobeck
et al., 1985); O2 and O4 (Pargent et al., 1991); L11 (Scott et al.,
1991); Humlv1L1 (Daley et al., 1992). Alternative names are given
in parenthesis.
[0271] a) These genes appear to have been created by cross-overs
between two V-genes during PCR amplification and therefore matches
have been determined using the two putative germline segments: FR,
framework; CDR, complementarity-determining region. [0272] Bentley,
D. L. and Rabbits, T. H. (1980) Nature, 288, 730-3. [0273] Bernard,
F., Chuchana, P., Frippiat, J. P., Buluwela, L. and Lefranc, M. P.
(1990) Nucleic Acids Res, 18, 7139. [0274] Brockly, F., Alexandre,
D., Chuchana, P., Huck, S., Lefranc, G. and Lefranc, M. P. (1989)
Nucleic Acids Res, 17, 3976. [0275] Frippiat, J. P., Chuchana, P.,
Bernard, F., Buluwela, L., Lefranc, G. and Lefranc, M. P. (1990)
Nucleic Acids Res, 18, 7134. [0276] Klobeck, H. G. Bornkamm, G. W.,
Combriato, G., Mocikat, R., Pohlenz, H. D. and Zachau, H. G. (1985)
Nucleic Acids Res, 13, 6515-29. [0277] Pargent, W., Meindl, A.,
Thiebe, R., Mitzel, S. and Zachau, H. G. (1991) Eur J Immunol, 21,
1821-7. [0278] Pech, M., Jaenichen, H. R., Pohlenz, H. D.,
Neumaier, P. S., Klobeck, H. G. and Zachau, (1984) J Mol Biol, 176,
189-204. [0279] Scott, M. G., Crimmins, D. L., McCourt, D. W.,
Chung, G., Schable, K. F., Thiebe, R., Quenzel, E. M., Zachau, H.
G. and Nahm, M. H. (1991) J Immunol, 47, 4007-13. [0280] Tomlinson,
I. M. Walter, G., Marks, J. D., Llewelyn, M. B. and Winter, G.
(1992) J. Mol. Biol., 227, in press.
TABLE-US-00005 [0280] TABLE III Affinities and kinetics of antigen
binding by monomeric and dimeric scFv fragments k.sub.on.sup.b)
k.sub.off.sup.b) K.sub.a = k.sub.on/k.sub.off K.sub.a by FQ.sup.c)
or Immobilised (BIAcore) (BIAcore) (BIAcore) inhibition.sup.d) scFv
(M/D).sup.a) Species M.sup.-1 s.sup.-1/10.sup.4 s.sup.-1/10.sup.-2
M.sup.-1/10.sup.6 M.sup.-1/10.sup.6 .alpha.TNF-E7 D Human
TNF.alpha. 9.0 (.+-.1.2) 1.4 (0.054) 6.4 ND .alpha.FOG1-H6 D Fog-1
(direct) 22.2 (.+-.0.4) 1.8 (0.23) 12.3 ND .alpha.FOG1-H6 D Fog-1
(via RAMIgG1) 22.1 (.+-.1.9) 2.4 (0.045) 9.3 ND .alpha.FOG1-H6 D
.alpha.FOG1-H6 scFv 104 (.+-.2.4) ND.sup.c) ND ND .alpha.FOG1-H6 M
+ D (Measured by inhibition) ND ND ND 0.3.sup.d) .alpha.FOG1-A3 M +
D (Measured by inhibition) ND ND ND 0.6.sup.d) .alpha.Thy-29 D
Human Thyroglobulin 6.6 (.+-.1.2) 0.46 (0.063) 14.3 ND
.alpha.Thy-29 M Human Thyroglobulin ND 2.0 (0.37) ND ND .alpha.TEL9
M Turkey Egg Lysozyme 39.2 (.+-.2.6) 1.0 (0.97) 39.2 11.6.sup.c)
.sup.a)M, monomeric fraction; D, dimeric fraction .sup.b)Numbers in
brackets are standard deviations .sup.c)FQ, fluorescence quench
titration .sup.d)Calculated from the extent of inhibition of
.sup.125I-Fog-1 binding to the Rh D antigen .sup.e)Not determined
because the dissociation curves were very badly bent
TABLE-US-00006 TABLE IV Oligonucleotides used SYNLIB1: 5'GCC TCC
ACC TCT CGA GAC GGT GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA ATA GTC AAA
(A/CNN)5 TCT TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC GGT GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 1)
SYNLIB2: 5'GCC TCC ACC TCT CGA GAC GGT GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA
(A/CNN)5 TCT TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC CGT GTG-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 2)
SYNLIB4: 5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)4 TCT TGC ACA GTA
ATA CAC GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 3) SYNLIB5: 5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC
TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)5 TCT TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ
ID NO.: 4) SYNLIB6: 5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)6 TCT
TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 5) SYNLIB7: 5'-GAC
CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)7 TCT TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC CGT
GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 6) SYNLIB8: 5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA
((A/C)NN)8 TCT TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 7)
SYNLIB9: 5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)9 TCT TGC ACA GTA
ATA CAC GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 8) SYNLIB10: 5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC
TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)10 TCT TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ
ID NO.: 9) SYNLIB11: 5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)11 TCT
TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 10) SYNLIB12:
5'-GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA ((A/C)NN)12 TCT TGC ACA GTA ATA CAC
GGC CGT GTC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 11) JHSAL: 5'-GCC TGA ACC GCC TCC ACC
AGT CGA CAC GGT GAC CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 12)
CDRFOR: 5'-CAG GGT ACC TTG GCC CCA-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 13) CDRBACK:
5'-GTG TAT TAC TGT GCA AGA-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 14) Human VII Back
Primers HuVH1aBACKSfi 5'-GTC CTC GCA ACT GCG GCC CAG CCG GCC ATG
GCC CAG GTG CAG CTG GTG CAG TCT GG-3' (SEQ ID NO,: 15)
HuVH2aBACKSfi 5'-GTC CTC GCA ACT GCG GCC CAG CCG GCC ATG GCC CAG
GTC AAC TTA AGG GAG TCT GG-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 16) HuVH3aBACKSfi 5'-GTC
CTC GCA ACT GCG GCC CAG CCG GCC ATG GCC GAG GTG CAG CTG GTG GAG TCT
GG-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 17) HuVH4aBACKSfi 5'-GTC CTC GCA ACT GCG GCC CAG
CCG GCC ATG GCC CAG GTG CAG CTG CAG GAG TCG GG-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 18)
HuVH5aBACKSfi 5'-GTC CTC GCA ACT GCG GCC CAG CCG GCC ATG GCC CAG
GTG CAG CTG TTG CAG TCT GC-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 19) HuVH6aBACKSfi 5'-GTC
CTC GCA ACT GCG GCC CAG CCG GCC ATG GCC CAG GTA CAG CTG CAG CAG TCA
GG-3' (SEQ ID NO.: 20)
Sequence CWU 1
1
21193DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide 1gcctccacct ctcgagacgg
tgaccagggt accttggccc caatagtcaa amnnmnnmnn 60mnnmnntctt gcacagtaat
acacggccgt gtc 93284DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide
2gcctccacct ctcgagacgg tgaccagggt accttggccc camnnmnnmn nmnnmnntct
60tgcacagtaa tacacggccg tgtc 84360DNAArtificial
SequenceOligonucleotide 3gaccagggta ccttggcccc amnnmnnmnn
mnntcttgca cagtaataca cggccgtgtc 60463DNAArtificial
SequenceOligonucleotide 4gaccagggta ccttggcccc amnnmnnmnn
mnnmnntctt gcacagtaat acacggccgt 60gtc 63566DNAArtificial
SequenceOligonucleotide 5gaccagggta ccttggcccc amnnmnnmnn
mnnmnnmnnt cttgcacagt aatacacggc 60cgtgtc 66669DNAArtificial
SequenceOligonucleotide 6gaccagggta ccttggcccc amnnmnnmnn
mnnmnnmnnm nntcttgcac agtaatacac 60ggccgtgtc 69772DNAArtificial
SequenceOligonucleotide 7gaccagggta ccttggcccc amnnmnnmnn
mnnmnnmnnm nnmnntcttg cacagtaata 60cacggccgtg tc 72875DNAArtificial
SequenceOligonucleotide 8gaccagggta ccttggcccc amnnmnnmnn
mnnmnnmnnm nnmnnmnntc ttgcacagta 60atacacggcc gtgtc
75978DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide 9gaccagggta ccttggcccc
amnnmnnmnn mnnmnnmnnm nnmnnmnnmn ntcttgcaca 60gtaatacacg gccgtgtc
781081DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide 10gaccagggta ccttggcccc
amnnmnnmnn mnnmnnmnnm nnmnnmnnmn nmnntcttgc 60acagtaatac acggccgtgt
c 811184DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide 11gaccagggta
ccttggcccc amnnmnnmnn mnnmnnmnnm nnmnnmnnmn nmnnmnntct 60tgcacagtaa
tacacggccg tgtc 841251DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide
12gcctgaaccg cctccaccag tcgacacggt gaccagggta ccttggcccc a
511318DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide 13cagggtacct tggcccca
181418DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide 14gtgtattact gtgcaaga
181556DNAArtificial SequncePrimer 15gtcctcgcaa ctgcggccca
gccggccatg gcccaggtgc agctggtgca gtctgg 561656DNAArtificial
SequencePrimer 16gtcctcgcaa ctgcggccca gccggccatg gcccaggtca
acttaaggga gtctgg 561756DNAArtificial SequencePrimer 17gtcctcgcaa
ctgcggccca gccggccatg gccgaggtgc agctggtgga gtctgg
561856DNAArtificial SequencePrimer 18gtcctcgcaa ctgcggccca
gccggccatg gcccaggtgc agctgcagga gtcggg 561956DNAArtificial
SequencePrimer 19gtcctcgcaa ctgcggccca gccggccatg gcccaggtgc
agctgttgca gtctgc 562056DNAArtificial SequencePrimer 20gtcctcgcaa
ctgcggccca gccggccatg gcccaggtac agctgcagca gtcagg
562119DNAArtificial SequenceOligonucleotide 21cgatccgcca ccgccagag
19
* * * * *