BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Boosting IgG with IgA

UT Austin's IgGAs could induce more potent leukocyte-mediated killing than IgGs

January 15, 2015 8:00 AM UTC

Although all marketed therapeutic mAbs use an IgG backbone, mostly for pharmacokinetic reasons, the antibodies don't do a good job of inducing neutrophils to kill cancer cells. A group at the University of Texas at Austin has engineered a new class of chimeric mAbs by borrowing sequences from IgA antibodies, and shown the new molecules could have better and broader activity against tumor cells than standard IgGs.

The resulting products, dubbed IgGAs, are designed to offer the best of both worlds: potency from IgA in activating neutrophils, and breadth of action from IgG in interacting with different types of leukocytes, as well as longer circulating half-lives. ...