Characterization of a rituximab variant with potent antitumor activity against rituximab-resistant B-cell lymphoma

Despite widespread use of the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody (mAb), rituximab, in treating B-cell lymphomas, its efficacy remains variable and often modest. A better understanding of rituximab-mediated killing mechanisms is essential to develop more effective therapeutic agents. In this study, we modulated the binding property of rituximab by introducing several point mutations in its complementarity-determining regions. The data showed that changing the binding avidity of rituximab in the range from 10(-8) to 10(-10) M could regulate its antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity but not affect its complement-dependent cytotoxicity and apoptosis-inducing activity in B-lymphoma cells. Contradictory to previous findings, we found that the complement-dependent cytotoxicity potency of CD20 mAb was independent of the off-rate. Despite still being a type I CD20 mAb, a rituximab triple mutant (H57DE/H102YK/L93NR), which had a similar binding avidity to a double mutant (H57DE/H102YK), was unexpectedly found to have extremely potent apoptosis-inducing activity. Moreover, this triple mutant, which was demonstrated to efficiently initiate both caspase-dependent and -independent apoptosis, exhibited potent in vivo therapeutic efficacy, even in the rituximab-resistant lymphoma model, suggesting that it might be a promising therapeutic agent for B-cell lymphomas.