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Treatment of allergic disease by decreasing circulating IgE with anti-IgE Abs is currently under clinical study. Based on previous unrelated studies, it appeared likely that Fc(epsilon)RI expression on basophils and mast cells might also be regulated by levels of circulating IgE Ab. Therefore, the expression of IgE and Fc(epsilon)RI on human basophils was examined in 15 subjects receiving humanized anti-IgE mAb intravenously. Treatment with the anti-IgE mAb decreased free IgE levels to 1% of pretreatment levels and also resulted in a marked down-regulation of Fc(epsilon)RI on basophils. Median pretreatment densities of Fc(epsilon)RI were approximately 220,000 receptors per basophil and after 3 mo of treatment, the densities had decreased to a median of 8,300 receptors per basophil. Flow cytometric studies, conducted in parallel, showed similar results and also showed in a subset of 3 donors that receptors decreased with a t1/2 of approximately 3 days. The responsiveness of the cells to IgE-mediated stimulation using anti-IgE Ab was marginally decreased (approximately 40%) while the response of the same cells to stimulation with dust mite Ag, Dermatophagoides farinae, was reduced by approximately 90%. One possible explanation for these results is that Fc(epsilon)RI density is directly or indirectly regulated by plasma-free IgE levels.

Lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1; CD11a/CD18) is involved in leukocyte adhesion during cellular interactions essential for immunologic responses and inflammation. mAbs against LFA-1 have been shown to inhibit several T cell-dependent immune functions in vitro and prevent graft failure after bone marrow transplantation in vivo. A murine anti-human CD11a mAb, MHM24, has been humanized and shown to prevent adhesion of human T cells to human keratinocytes and the proliferation of T cells in response to nonautologous leukocytes in the mixed lymphocyte response assay. However, of the nonhuman primate CD11a that we tested, the murine and humanized mAbs cross-reacted only with chimpanzee CD11a. To have a mAb available for preclinical studies in rhesus monkeys, the humanized mAb was reengineered to bind to rhesus CD11a by changing four residues in one of the complementarity-determining regions, CDR-H2, in the variable heavy domain. Cloning and molecular modeling of rhesus CD11a I-domain suggested that the changes from Lys197 and/or Arg189 in human CD11a I-domain to Glu197 and Gln189 in rhesus CD11a I-domain may be the reason that rhesus CD11a does not bind to the murine and humanized mAbs.

IgE antibodies bind to specific high-affinity receptors on mast cells, leading to mast cell degranulation and release of mediators, such as histamine, which produce symptoms associated with allergy. Hence, anti-IgE antibodies that block binding of IgE to its high-affinity receptor are of potential therapeutic value in the treatment of allergy. These antibodies must also not bind to IgE once it is bound to the receptor because this would trigger histamine release. This study describes the humanization of a murine antibody, MaE11, with these characteristics. Variants of the humanized antibody were evaluated to probe the importance of framework residues on antibody binding and to determine which charged residues in the CDR interacted with IgE. We found that only five changes in human framework residues were required to provide for binding comparable to that of the original murine antibody.