BioCentury
ARTICLE | Distillery Therapeutics

Infectious disease

March 27, 2018 11:21 PM UTC

Patient sample and mouse studies suggest agonizing OX40 could help treat HBV infection in patient subsets with poor viral clearance, including pediatric patients with acute infection and adults with chronic infection. In blood samples from adult HBV patients, the numbers of OX40-positive T cells in patients with acute infection were higher than in patients with chronic infection. In an adult mouse model of chronic HBV, an OX40 agonist mAb increased the percentage of HBV-specific T cells compared with an isotype control antibody. In a young mouse model of acute HBV infection, the OX40 agonist mAb increased the numbers of CD4+ T cells and T follicular helper cells in the liver and decreased plasma levels of HBsAg compared with an isotype control antibody. Next steps could including testing the OX40 agonist mAb in additional models of HBV infection with poor viral clearance.

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