The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a type I transmembrane protein, which is a member of the human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER) family of receptor tyrosine kinases. EGFR is a crucial mediator of cell growth and differentiation and forms homodimers or heterodimers with other HER family members to activate downstream signaling cascades. We previously established an anti-human EGFR (hEGFR) monoclonal antibody (mAb), clone EMab-134 (mouse IgG1), by immunizing mice with the ectodomain of hEGFR. In this study, the subclass of EMab-134 was converted from IgG1 to IgG2a (134-mG2a) and further defucosylated (134-mG2a-f) to facilitate antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). Although 134-mG2a-f was developed against hEGFR, it was shown to cross-react with dog EGFR (dEGFR) using flow cytometry. The dissociation constant (KD) of 134-mG2a-f against dEGFR-overexpressed CHO-K1 (CHO/dEGFR) cells was determined by flow cytometry to be 3.3 × 10-9 M, indicating that 134-mG2a-f possesses a high binding affinity to dEGFR. Analysis in vitro revealed that 134-mG2a-f contributed to high levels of ADCC and complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) in experiments targeting CHO/dEGFR cells. Furthermore, the in vivo administration of 134-mG2a-f significantly inhibited the development of CHO/dEGFR in comparison with the results observed in response to control mouse IgG. Taken together, the findings of this study demonstrate that 134-mG2a-f could be useful as part of a therapeutic regimen for dEGFR-expressing canine cancers.
Keywords: ADCC; CDC; EGFR; antitumor activity; monoclonal antibody.