Human plasma cells engineered to secrete bispecifics drive effective in vivo leukemia killing

Abstract

Bispecific antibodies are an important tool for the management and treatment of acute leukemias. Advances in genome-engineering have enabled the generation of human plasma cells that secrete therapeutic proteins and are capable of long-term in vivo engraftment in humanized mouse models. As a next step towards clinical translation of engineered plasma cells (ePCs) towards cancer therapy, here we describe approaches for the expression and secretion of bispecific antibodies by human plasma cells. We show that human ePCs expressing either fragment crystallizable domain deficient anti-CD19 x anti-CD3 (blinatumomab) or anti-CD33 x anti-CD3 bispecific antibodies mediate T cell activation and direct T cell killing of specific primary human cell subsets and B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia or acute myeloid leukemia cell lines in vitro. We demonstrate that knockout of the self-expressed antigen, CD19, boosts anti-CD19 bispecific secretion by ePCs and prevents self-targeting. Further, anti-CD19 bispecific-ePCs elicited tumor eradication in vivo following local delivery in flank-implanted Raji lymphoma cells. Finally, immunodeficient mice engrafted with anti-CD19 bispecific-ePCs and autologous T cells potently prevented in vivo growth of CD19+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia in patient-derived xenografts. Collectively, these findings support further development of ePCs for use as a durable, local delivery system for the treatment of acute leukemias, and potentially other cancers. Key pointsO_LIUsing gene editing, we engineered human plasma cells that secrete functional bispecifics to target leukemia cells expressing CD19 or CD33 C_LIO_LIEngineered plasma cells secreting bispecifics suppress patient-derived leukemia in immunodeficient mice C_LI