Immunotoxin based antiviral drugs offer a novel antiviral mechanism for combination therapy and for treating infections that have become resistant to the current first-line intervention.
Depletion of alloreactive T cells by a specific anti-interleukin-2 receptor p55 chain
immunotoxin does not impair in vitro antileukemia and antiviral activity.
University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM) has patented a heat shock protein
immunotoxin comprising: at least a fragment of a heat shock protein, the fragment being capable of being bound by an immune cell; and a toxin bound to the fragment.
Cell surface density of p185(c-erbB-2) determines susceptibility to anti-p185(c-erbB-2)-ricin A chain (RTA)
immunotoxin therapy alone and in combination with anti-p170(EGFR)-RTA in ovarian cancer cells.
Both abstracts evaluated SS1(dsFv)-PE38 as an anti-mesothelin
immunotoxin in advanced malignancies.
Wang et al., "First experience with the use of a recombinant CD3
immunotoxin as induction therapy in pig-to-primate xenotransplantation: the effect of T-cell depletion on outcome," Transplantation, vol.
Lu et al., "IL-2
immunotoxin therapy modulates tumor-associated regulatory T cells and leads to lasting immune-mediated rejection of breast cancers in neutransgenic mice," The Journal of Immunology, vol.
The development plan includes programs for both
immunotoxin and radiolabeled products.
Strategies such as anti-CD25 antibody and CD25-specific
immunotoxin [211] employed to reduce Treg function target the constitutively expressed cell surface marker, CD25.
Tsuneyoshi et al., "Targeting tumor-associated macrophages in an experimental glioma model with a recombinant
immunotoxin to folate receptor beta," Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy, vol.
"Bone Marrow Purging Studies in Acute Myelogenous Leukemia Using the Recombinant Anti-CD33
Immunotoxin HuM195/RGel." Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation: Journal of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation 9, no.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will next determine whether
immunotoxin conditioning facilitates engraftment of gene-modified stem cells using FancA mice and optimize dosing of
immunotoxin platform to completely eliminate host hematopoiesis in order to decrease the risk of leukemogenesis.