Galactose-conjugated antibodies in cancer therapy: properties and principles of action

Galactose conjugation of antibodies causes them to be recognized by the hepatic asialoglycoprotein receptor and therefore cleared very rapidly from the blood. In these investigations, some effector functions of galactose-conjugated antibodies were assayed, and several applications to experimental tumors in vivo were demonstrated. Galactose conjugation did not interfere with two antibody functions in addition to antigen binding, namely complement-mediated cytotoxicity and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. This conjugation procedure was originally developed for its potential use in localized immunotherapy, such as i.p. Injection of galactose-antibody conjugates i.p. demonstrated, more conclusively than other methods that have been used, that the presence of ascites causes prolonged retention of antibody in the peritoneal cavity and that this effect is correlated with the volume of ascites present. In mice bearing i.p. tumor xenografts, i.p. injection of galactose-antibody conjugates resulted in high tumor/nontumor ratios at 28 h after antibody injection, with values of 40:1, 43:1, 77:1, and 11:1 for the blood, kidney, lung, and spleen, respectively, although the ratio was only 4:1 for the liver. Control experiments demonstrated that i.p. injection of unconjugated antibody or a galactose-conjugated nonreactive antibody produced much lower tumor/nontumor ratios. In investigations of possible systemic application of galactose-antibody conjugates, we found that injection of large amounts of an inhibitor that binds competitively to the hepatic receptor, asialo-bovine submaxillary mucin, can block clearance of galactose-conjugated antibodies for 2-3 days. In this way, high blood levels of antibody can be maintained for 2-3 days, thus allowing penetration and binding to solid tumors, followed by very rapid blood clearance. With this approach, using a human carcinoma growing s.c. in nude mice, high tumor/nontumor ratios were obtained 4 days after injection, with mean values of 43:1, 18:1, 17:1, and 15:1 for the blood, kidney, lung, and spleen, respectively, although the ratio for the liver was only 1.7:1. The blood level at this time was 0.04 +/- 0.02% (SD) of the injected dose/g, while the tumor level was 1.69 +/- 1.29% of the injected dose/g. In conclusion, galactose-conjugated antibodies appear to have diverse applications in regional or systemic immunotherapy.