CD4+ levels control the odds of induction of humoral immune responses to tracer doses of therapeutic antibodies

Abstract

Rapidly increasing number of therapeutic antibodies are being repurposed to imaging probes for noninvasive diagnosis, as well as monitoring during treatment or disease recurrence. Though antibody-based imaging involves tracer doses (~3 log lower than therapeutic doses), and immune responses are severely reduced in patients with impaired immunity, formation of anti-tracer antibodies (ATA) has been observed hampering further diagnostic monitoring. Here, we explored the potential to develop humoral responses to intravenously administered tracer dose of a monoclonal antibody F(ab′)2 fragment, and associated with host related immune measures in 49 rhesus macaques categorized into healthy (uninfected controls), SIV-progressors, SIV non-progressors, or total body irradiated (TBI). Antibody fragment administered in tracer amount (~100μg) induced immune responses with significantly lower odds in SIV-progressors or TBI macaques (P<0.005) as compared to healthy animals. Peripheral blood (PB) CD4+ cell counts, but not CD20+ cell levels, were associated with significantly higher risk of developing a humoral response (P<0.001). Doubling the PB CD4+ counts is associated with an odds ratio of developing an immune response of 1.73. Among SIV-infected animals, CD4+ cell count was a stronger predictor of immune response than plasma SIV-RNA levels. Both SIV-progressors and TBI macaques showed higher odds of responses with increasing CD4+ counts, however when compared to healthy or SIV non-progressors with similar CD4+ count, they were still functionally incompetent in generating a response (P<0.01). Moreover, presence of ATA in systemic circulation altered the in vivo biodistribution by increasing hepatic uptake and decreasing plasma radiotracer clearance, with minimal to no binding detected in targeted tissues.