CD20 as a target for therapeutic type I and II monoclonal antibodies

Stephen A Beers1, Claude H T Chan, Ruth R French

  • 1Tenovus Laboratory, Cancer Sciences Division, University of Southampton School of Medicine, General Hospital, Southampton, UK.

Seminars in Hematology
|March 31, 2010
PubMed

The last decade has seen the monoclonal antibody (mAb), rituximab, transform clinical management of many non-Hodgkin lymphomas and more recently provide new opportunities for controlling autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Although not yet fully determined, the explanation for this success appears to lie with the inherent properties of its target, CD20, which allow rituximab to recruit potent cytotoxic effectors with unusual efficiency. In this review we detail the properties of CD20 that make it such an effective therapeutic target and describe how different mAbs change the membrane distribution and internalization of CD20 and have distinct modes of cytotoxic activity.

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