CD46 targeted (212)Pb alpha particle radioimmunotherapy for prostate cancer treatment

We recently identified CD46 as a novel prostate cancer cell surface antigen that shows lineage independent expression in both adenocarcinoma and small cell neuroendocrine subtypes of metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), discovered an internalizing human monoclonal antibody YS5 that binds to a tumor selective CD46 epitope, and developed a microtubule inhibitor-based antibody drug conjugate that is in a multi-center phase I trial for mCRPC (NCT03575819). Here we report the development of a novel CD46-targeted alpha therapy based on YS5. We conjugated (212)Pb, an in vivo generator of alpha-emitting (212)Bi and (212)Po, to YS5 through the chelator TCMC to create the radioimmunoconjugate, (212)Pb-TCMC-YS5. We characterized (212)Pb-TCMC-YS5 in vitro and established a safe dose in vivo. We next studied therapeutic efficacy of a single dose of (212)Pb-TCMC-YS5 using three prostate cancer small animal models: a subcutaneous mCRPC cell line-derived xenograft (CDX) model (subcu-CDX), an orthotopically grafted mCRPC CDX model (ortho-CDX), and a prostate cancer patient-derived xenograft model (PDX). In all three models, a single dose of 0.74 MBq (20 µCi) (212)Pb-TCMC-YS5 was well tolerated and caused potent and sustained inhibition of established tumors, with significant increases of survival in treated animals. A lower dose (0.37 MBq or 10 µCi (212)Pb-TCMC-YS5) was also studied on the PDX model, which also showed a significant effect on tumor growth inhibition and prolongation of animal survival. These results demonstrate that (212)Pb-TCMC-YS5 has an excellent therapeutic window in preclinical models including PDXs, opening a direct path for clinical translation of this novel CD46-targeted alpha radioimmunotherapy for mCRPC treatment. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13046-023-02636-x.