The safety of most human recombinant proteins can be evaluated in transgenic mice tolerant to specific human proteins. However, owing to insufficient genetic diversity and to fundamental differences in immune mechanisms, small-animal models of human diseases are often unsuitable for immunogenicity testing and for predicting adverse outcomes in human patients. Most human therapeutic antibodies trigger xenogeneic responses in wild-type animals and thus rapid clearance of the drugs, which makes in vivo toxicological testing of human antibodies challenging. Here we report the generation of Göttingen minipigs carrying a mini-repertoire of human genes for the immunoglobulin heavy chains γ1 and γ4 and the immunoglobulin light chain κ. In line with observations in human patients, the genetically modified minipigs tolerated the clinically non-immunogenic IgG1κ-isotype monoclonal antibodies daratumumab and bevacizumab, and elicited antibodies against the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab and the engineered interleukin cergutuzumab amunaleukin. The humanized minipigs can facilitate the safety and efficacy testing of therapeutic antibodies.
© 2022. The Author(s).

The use of biologic-based therapeutics has revolutionized our ability to treat complex diseases such as cancer- and autoimmune-related disorders. Biologic-based therapeutics are known to generate anti-drug immune responses or immunogenicity in clinical patients which can lead to altered pharmacokinetics, decreased drug efficacy, and unwanted adverse clinical events. Assays designed to detect and assess anti-drug immune responses are used to help monitor patients and improve drug safety. Utilizing a tiered approach, screening assays are developed first to identify patients that are potentially positive for anti-drug-specific antibodies. Patients that screen positive are subjected to additional tiers of testing that include a confirmation assay to confirm the presence of expected anti-drug-specific antibodies, a titer assay to assess relative levels of anti-drug-specific antibodies, and, depending on the drug's mechanism of action or concerns of adverse clinical reactions, further characterization such as drug neutralization and anti-drug antibody isotyping. This tiered approach can prove to be detrimental to clinical samples from exposure to multiple cycles of testing, freeze thaws, and repeated handling by lab personnel. Multiplexing some of these assays together may streamline the characterization of anti-drug immune responses and help reduce the repeated usage of clinical samples. In this study, we combined a screening assay and anti-drug isotyping assays into one multiplexed assay using the Luminex® xMAP® Technology. The multiplexed assay was developed and validated to meet the FDA recommended guidelines for immunogenicity assessments. These results show that multiplexed assays perform comparably to industry standards. This study should encourage labs to explore the use of multiplexing immunogenicity assays to characterize anti-drug antibody responses quickly, with less repeat testing and reduced sample handling.

Providing humoral immunity, antibody-secreting plasma cells and their immediate precursors, the plasmablasts, are generated in systemic and mucosal immune reactions. Despite their key role in maintaining immunity and immunopathology, little is known about their homeostasis. Here we show that plasmablasts and plasma cells are always detectable in human blood at low frequency in any unimmunized donor. In this steady state, 80% of plasmablasts and plasma cells express immunoglobulin A (IgA). Expression of a functional mucosal chemokine receptor, C-C motif receptor 10 (CCR10) and the adhesion molecule beta(7) integrin suggests that these cells come from mucosal immune reactions and can return to mucosal tissue. These blood-borne, CCR10(+) plasmablasts also are attracted by CXCL12. Approximately 40% of plasma cells in human bone marrow are IgA(+), nonmigratory, and express beta(7) integrin and CCR10, suggesting a substantial contribution of mucosal plasma cells to bone marrow resident, long-lived plasma cells. Six to 8 days after parenteral tetanus/diphtheria vaccination, intracellular IgG(+) cells appear in blood, both CD62L(+), beta(7) integrin(-), dividing, vaccine-specific, migratory plasmablasts and nondividing, nonmigratory, CD62L(-) plasma cells of different specificities. Systemic vaccination does not impact on peripheral IgA(+) plasmablast numbers, indicating that mucosal and systemic humoral immune responses are regulated independent of each other.