[Application of chimeric and humanized antibodies to autoimmune diseases therapy]

Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have been extensively developed for treating autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and intestinal bowl diseases. Recombinant DNA technology made it possible to manufacture chimeric and humanized MAbs, resulting in lower antigenicity, longer half-life in serum and higher biological activities compared to the original murine MAbs. Here, chimeric and humanized MAbs under clinical investigations in the field of autoimmune diseases are reviewed. At this time, non-deleting type of anti-CD4 MAb and anti-TNF alpha MAb have an attractive attention because of their excellent efficacy in the clinical trials. Although deleting type of anti-CD4 MAb failed to show the efficacy in double-blind phase III trials reproducibly, it should be re-evaluated on the administration dosage and duration. In the near future, MAbs to adhesion molecules and co-stimulatory molecules will be studied in clinics.