Functional diversification of hybridoma-produced antibodies by CRISPR/HDR genomic engineering

Sci Adv. 2019 Aug 28;5(8):eaaw1822. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw1822. eCollection 2019 Aug.

Abstract

Hybridoma technology is instrumental for the development of novel antibody therapeutics and diagnostics. Recent preclinical and clinical studies highlight the importance of antibody isotype for therapeutic efficacy. However, since the sequence encoding the constant domains is fixed, tuning antibody function in hybridomas has been restricted. Here, we demonstrate a versatile CRISPR/HDR platform to rapidly engineer the constant immunoglobulin domains to obtain recombinant hybridomas, which secrete antibodies in the preferred format, species, and isotype. Using this platform, we obtained recombinant hybridomas secreting Fab' fragments, isotype-switched chimeric antibodies, and Fc-silent mutants. These antibody products are stable, retain their antigen specificity, and display their intrinsic Fc-effector functions in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we can site-specifically attach cargo to these antibody products via chemoenzymatic modification. We believe that this versatile platform facilitates antibody engineering for the entire scientific community, empowering preclinical antibody research.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antibodies, Monoclonal / genetics*
  • Antibody Specificity / genetics
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats / genetics*
  • Genomics / methods
  • Hybridomas / physiology*
  • Immunoglobulin Fab Fragments / genetics
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Recombinant Fusion Proteins / genetics

Substances

  • Antibodies, Monoclonal
  • Immunoglobulin Fab Fragments
  • Recombinant Fusion Proteins