DEVELOPMENT OF A SELECTIVE CD16A-BASED NK CELL ENGAGER UTILIZING ANTIBODIES TARGETING A SINGLE AMINO ACID VARIATION

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE: Natural killer (NK) cells play a vital role in the human innate immune system and are being explored as a promising approach for cancer immunotherapy. Of particular interest are NK cell engagers that can target and activate NK cells to attack cancer cells. In this study, we developed novel NK cell engagers by targeting the NK cell activating receptor CD16a using antibodies that selectively distinguish between CD16a on NK cells and CD16b on granulocytes, which are highly homologous to each other. METHODS AND RESULTS: To generate antibodies with high developability, we employed a rational design approach to construct large yeast display libraries of human antibodies. This approach was based on the analysis of a deep sequencing dataset of human antibodies from over 500 individuals, which allowed us to determine the natural amino acid usage patterns of human antibody CDRs and mimic human antibody repertoires. Through screening these libraries, we discovered two classes of antibody clones that selectively recognize CD16a without cross-reactivity to CD16b. Epitope mapping revealed that a single amino acid difference confers over 10,000-fold selectivity for one class of antibody clones, while for the other class a second unique epitope on CD16a was identified. To evaluate the activity of these antibody clones, we produced bispecific antibody clones with one arm targeting CD16a and the other arm targeting a tumor-associated antigen (TAA). Our results demonstrated potent tumor cell-dependent activation of NK cells and effective killing of tumor cells. Several of these antibodies had greatly enhanced resistance to human IgG inhibition in killing target cells. Significantly, our anti-CD16a antibody clones exhibited superior performance compared to leading reference anti-CD16a clones in two distinct NK cell engager formats. This included higher affinity for CD16a, higher thermostability, and more potent killing activity both in the absence and presence of 10 mg/mL human IgGs as competitors. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that anti-CD16a antibody-based NK cell engagers have significant potential for cancer immunotherapies.