Abstract 1765: A humanized anti-CD47 monoclonal antibody that directly kills human tumor cells and has additional unique functional characteristics

Abstract

Abstract CD47 is a cell surface glycoprotein that interacts with signal regulatory protein alpha (SIRPα) on macrophages and dendritic cells triggering a “don't eat me” signal that inhibits phagocytosis. Many tumors evade immune surveillance by overexpressing CD47, thereby preventing their recognition by phagocytes. Blocking the interaction of SIRPα/CD47 promotes phagocytosis and tumor cell destruction leading to a reduction in tumor burden. We have developed a humanized anti-CD47 antibody, AO-176, that blocks the interaction between CD47 and SIRPα and exhibits several additional novel functional characteristics. These characteristics include the induction of cell death in multiple human tumor cell lines in a cell autonomous manner (not ADCC), assessed by an increase in phosphatidylserine/7AAD positive staining. A second novel characteristic is enhanced binding to tumor cells at acidic pH. AO-176 binds to human tumor cell lines in the high pM to low nM range at physiologic pH, however, binding is enhanced up to 20-fold at an acidic pH of 6.5. The acidic pH of the tumor microenvironment which ranges from 6.4-7.2 is characteristic of solid tumors and correlates with tumor progression and metastasis. As a result of this enhanced binding at acidic pH, AO-176 has the potential added advantage of tumor-specific targeting. A third novel characteristic exhibited by AO-176 is its selective binding to tumor cells while exhibiting reduced binding to normal cells including red blood cells (cynomolgus monkey and human), endothelial, epithelial and skeletal muscle cells. In addition to these novel characteristics, AO-176 also exhibits dose-dependent efficacy in multiple mouse tumor models. Taken together, the unique combination of functional characteristics of AO-176, including induction of cell-autonomous killing, enhanced binding to tumor cells at acidic pH, significantly reduced binding to normal cells and potent in vivo efficacy provides the preclinical rationale for further development. Citation Format: Robyn Puro, Katherine Liu, Benjamin Capoccia, Michael Donio, Ronald Hiebsch, Myriam Bouchlaka, Alun Carter, Pamela Manning, Kathleen Crowley, Robert Karr. A humanized anti-CD47 monoclonal antibody that directly kills human tumor cells and has additional unique functional characteristics [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1765.