Preclinical imaging evaluation of a bispecific antibody targeting hPD1/CTLA4 using humanized mice

The lack of an efficient way to screen patients who are responsive to immunotherapy challenges PD1/CTLA4-targeting cancer treatment. Immunotherapeutic efficacy cannot be clearly determined by peripheral blood analyses, tissue gene markers or CT/MR value. Here, we used a radionuclide and imaging techniques to investigate the novel dual targeted antibody cadonilimab (AK104) in PD1/CTLA4-positive cells in vivo.

First, humanized PD1/CTLA4 mice were purchased from Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd. to express hPD1/CTLA4 in T-cells. Then, mouse colon cancer MC38-hPD-L1 cell xenografts were established in humanized mice. A bispecific antibody targeting PD1/CTLA4 (AK104) was labeled with radio-nuclide iodine isotopes. Immuno-PET/CT imaging was performed using a bispecific monoclonal antibody (mAb) probe ¹²⁴I-AK104, developed in-house, to locate PD1⁺/CTLA4⁺ tumor-infiltrating T cells and monitor their distribution in mice to evaluate the therapeutic effect.

The ¹²⁴I-AK104 dual-antibody was successfully constructed with ideal radiochemical characteristics, in vitro stability and specificity. The results of immuno-PET showed that ¹²⁴I-AK104 revealed strong hPD1/CTLA4-positive responses with high specificity in humanized mice. High uptake of ¹²⁴I-AK104 was observed not only at the tumor site but also in the spleen. Compared with PD1- or CTLA4-targeting mAb imaging, ¹²⁴I-AK104 imaging had excellent standard uptake values at the tumor site and higher tumor to nontumor (T/NT) ratios.

The results demonstrated the potential of translating ¹²⁴I-AK104 into a method for screening patients who benefit from immunotherapy and the efficacy, as well as the feasibility, of this method was verified by immuno-PET imaging of humanized mice.