A new technology for increasing therapeutic protein levels in the brain over extended periods

Effective delivery of protein therapeutics into the brain remains challenging because of difficulties associated with crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB). To overcome this problem, many researchers have focused on antibodies binding the transferrin receptor (TfR), which is expressed in endothelial cells, including those of the BBB, and is involved in receptor-mediated transcytosis (RMT). RMT and anti-TfR antibodies provide a useful means of delivering therapeutics into the brain, but the anti-TfR antibody has a short half-life in blood because of its broad expression throughout the body. As a result, anti-TfR antibodies are only maintained at high concentrations in the brain for a short time. To overcome this problem, we developed a different approach which slows down the export of therapeutic antibodies from the brain by binding them to a brain-specific antigen. Here we report a new technology, named AccumuBrain, that achieves both high antibody concentration in the brain and a long half-life in blood by binding to myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG), which is specifically expressed in oligodendrocytes. We report that, using our technology, anti-MOG antibody levels in the brains of mice (Mus musculus) and rats (Rattus norvegicus) were increased several tens of times for a period of one month. The mechanism of this technology is different from that of RMT technologies like TfR and would constitute a breakthrough for central nervous system disease therapeutics.