BiTE: Teaching antibodies to engage T-cells for cancer therapy.

Abstract

Bispecific T-cell-engager (BiTE) antibodies are designed to transiently engage cytotoxic T-cells for lysis of selected target cells. Although this therapeutic concept had been proposed more than two decades ago, BiTE, and also trispecific, antibodies did not achieve clinical proof-of-concept until the past 2 years. Their clinical activity corroborates findings that ex vivo expanded, autologous T-cells derived from tumor tissue, or transfected with specific T-cell receptors, have shown therapeutic potential in the treatment of solid tumors. While these personalized approaches prove that T-cells alone can have considerable therapeutic activity, even in late-stage cancer, they are cumbersome to perform on a broad basis. This is different for cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) antibodies, which facilitate generation of tumor-specific T-cell clones, and also for bi- and tri-specific antibodies that directly engage a large proportion of patients' T-cells for cancer cell lysis. The potential of global T-cell engagement for human cancer therapy by T-cell-engaging antibodies has yet to be fully investigated.

• Authors: Patrick A Baeuerle, Peter Kufer, Ralf Bargou
• Journal: Current opinion in molecular therapeutics (Curr Opin Mol Ther) Vol. 11 Issue 1 Pg. 22-30 (Feb 2009) ISSN: 2040-3445 [Electronic] England
• PMID: 19169956 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Review)

Chemical References

• Antibodies, Bispecific
• Antigens, CD
• CTLA-4 Antigen
• CTLA4 protein, human

Topics

• Antibodies, Bispecific (immunology)
• Antigens, CD (immunology)
• CTLA-4 Antigen
• Humans
• Neoplasms (immunology, therapy)
• T-Lymphocytes (immunology)
• T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic (immunology)