|
||
Articles |
| Abstract |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Humanized antibodies were designed to limit the response of the human immune system to rodent monoclonal antibodies used in therapy of human disease (1). They represented an advance over chimeric antibodies (2–4), which were engineered with murine immunoglobulin variable domains and human constant domains, in that the foreign content of humanized variable regions was substantially reduced. This was achieved by combining the short, hypervariable complementarity determining regions (CDRs)1 of a murine antibody, which fold to form an antigen combining site of unique structure, with human variable domain framework regions, which appear to be conserved in sequence throughout all races (5–9). The resulting molecule has the same specificity as the murine antibody, but substitution of human sequences confers a much longer in vivo lifetime and nearly eliminates immunogenic side effects (10).
Framework and CDR segments can be identified from sequence information alone, since they are defined by homology rather than structure (11, 12). At the three-dimensional level, however, the two sets of residues are in intimate contact and mutually influence each other's conformation (13, 14). Human framework residues can alter the conformation of transposed mouse CDRs and thereby disrupt antigen binding. Since human and mouse framework regions differ by upwards of 50 out of 170 residues (15), the potential for this sort of disruption is high. Nevertheless, humanizing by grafting mouse CDRs onto human frameworks usually transfers antigenic specificity, though sometimes additional framework mutations are required to put antigen affinity on a par with the starting mouse antibody (13).
In this report, we describe intrinsic aspects of immunoglobulin structure that may partly account for the ease with which CDRs and framework regions from different animal species and unrelated antigenic specificities may be combined to give a functional molecule. We have determined the crystal structure of the complex between hen egg white lysozyme and the immunoglobulin heavy and light chain variable domains (Fv) of a humanized version of the mouse antilysozyme D1.3 (HuLys). This is the first reported structure of a complex of antigen with a humanized antibody, and completes a family of crystallographically determined component structures. D1.3 was previously determined in the free form and complexed with lysozyme, both at 1.8-Å resolution (16, 17). HuLys was determined in the unliganded form at 2.9-Å resolution (14) . The human immunoglobulins NEW and REI, from which the HuLys heavy and light chain framework regions were taken, respectively, have previously been determined in their unliganded form, both at 2.0-Å resolution (18–20). The availability of mouse, human, and antigen complex structures for reference has now allowed us to identify conformational differences in the humanized Fv that result from protein engineering and ligand binding.
Crystallization.
Data Collection.
![]()
Materials and Methods
Top
Abstract
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
References
Protein Expression.
The HuLys protein used in this study was a high affinity form with variable domain sequences identical to those published previously (21). This molecule was expressed as an Fv fragment in the Escherichia coli strain 25F2, using the vector pAK19 (22). In brief, 15 liters of defined medium (23) supplemented with 0.15% casamino acids, 1% glucose, and 20 µg/ml tetracycline was inoculated with 400 ml of a starter culture (absorbance at 600 nm 1.5–2) and grown in a fermentor (New Brunswick Scientific MPP, Edison, NJ) for 20 h at 37°C. Cells were harvested by centrifugation and subjected to osmotic shock to release periplasmic proteins (24). The periplasmic fraction was clarified by centrifugation (30 min at 14,500 g) and passed through a lysozyme–Sepharose column. After extensive washes with PBS and high salt buffer (500 mM NaCl, 50 mM Tris, pH 8.5), the Fv was eluted with 50 mM diethylamine.
The purified Fv was complexed with lysozyme and crystallized from phosphate buffer. Lysozyme (three times crystallized) was purchased from Sigma Chemical Co. (St. Louis, MO) and dissolved in PBS. HuLys–lysozyme complex was prepared by mixing the two in equimolar proportions, letting the solution sit for 30 min, and diluting to 10 µg/ml with PBS. There was immediate slight cloudiness upon mixing; the solution was spun in a bench-top centrifuge before setting up crystallizations. Crystallization was by vapor diffusion; both hanging drops and sitting drops in microbridges were used. Protein concentration was 7 or 10 mg/ml. The reservoir was 1.6 or 1.7 M phosphate (made by mixing equal volumes of K2HPO4 and NaH2PO4), and 0.1 M Hepes, pH 6.5. Equal volumes of protein and reservoir solutions were mixed to make the drop.
Two x-ray diffraction data sets were collected to 2.9-Å resolution and 2.7-Å resolution, each from a single crystal at 4°C, using an r-axis detector. The two data sets were processed (Table 1) with DENZO and SCALEPACK (25). The lower resolution data set, truncated to 3.5 Å, was used initially for determining the molecular replacement solution. Refinement was carried out when the higher resolution data set became available.
|
Crystallographic Refinement.
The 2.7-Å resolution data set was partitioned by X-PLOR (27) into two sets, one for refinement and calculation of the working R value, and the other for calculation of the free R value (28, 29). A rigid-body refinement was performed at 3.5-Å resolution using X-PLOR, first with each complex as a rigid body, and then with each chain as a rigid body. The refinement resulted in a drop of both working R and free R from 0.46 to 0.32 (10–3.5 Å). Alternating rounds of positional and individual B value refinement, using both X-PLOR and TNT (30), and model building, using QUANTA (Molecular Simulations, Inc., Burlington, MA), were performed (Table 2). No solvent molecules were included in the model. The values for working R and free R dropped from 0.35 to 0.21 and from 0.34 to 0.30, respectively (10–2.7 Å). A PROCHECK analysis (31) of the structure showed no residues in disallowed regions of a Ramachandran plot except for residue L51 of both molecules. This is also seen in the uncomplexed HuLys and REI and many other Fab structures. The residue is in a
-turn conformation (32). Residue numbering follows the Kabat system (15). In this paper we precede each residue number with a chain designator, e.g., L51 for light chain residue 51.
|
| Results |
|---|
|
|
|---|
) atoms of the polypeptide chains, it is clear that the side chain conformations are also nearly identical in the complexed structures.
|
–C
distances after CDR superposition are 1.20 and 1.31 Å for molecules 1 and 2, respectively, versus molecule 2 of the uncomplexed Fv structure. This large shift is not seen upon examination of the D1.3 structures, possibly because in uncomplexed D1.3, this residue may be held in a complexed-like conformation due to crystal packing interactions. All other shifts in antigen-contacting residues are less than twice the root mean square (rms) distance for the superposition of all six CDRs.
The rearrangements accompanying lysozyme binding represent a broader effect than symmetry-related intermolecular contacts alone can account for. Quantitative evidence that the CDRs of the liganded forms of HuLys and D1.3 are more structurally similar than in the free Fv molecules is presented in Table 3. The rms differences in position of C
atoms in the mouse and humanized CDRs, which comprise 56 residues in each molecule, is 0.37 Å when the Fv–lysozyme complexes are compared, versus 0.63 Å comparing the CDRs in the free Fvs (33). The liganded CDRs are closer in structure than any other residue subset in Table 1. In addition, the binding of lysozyme by HuLys causes the CDRs to more closely resemble the unbound D1.3 CDRs. Even superposition of the lysozyme molecule in the HuLys complex onto the lysozyme molecule in the D1.3 complex gives a rms distance one fourth larger than for the corresponding CDRs. Lysozyme itself forms crystal packing interactions that differ in the mouse and HuLys complexes, which give rise to some of the differences.
|
|
Conformational Correction in Framework.
A second conformational correction mechanism appears to involve a subtle rearrangement of HuLys framework residues proximal to the CDRs. Evidence for this rearrangement is shown in Fig. 2. In 2 A, the framework of the Fv structure has been divided into layers according to CDR proximity. Residues within 4 Å of a CDR form the first layer, residues approaching between 4 and 8 Å the next layer, and so on. Fig. 2 C shows, for each layer, the degree of sequence identity between HuLys and cognate residues in the two parent antibody molecules. Here, HuLys and D1.3 have 100% sequence identity in the CDRs, whereas in all framework layers HuLys and the human molecules are more similar in primary structure. Fig. 2 B depicts a parameter more relevant to homology at the three-dimensional level. Here, the distance from each HuLys C
to the cognate C
in superposed D1.3, REI, or NEW molecules was determined. The difference between the HuLys to human and HuLys to mouse distance was then calculated, and the median for each residue layer was compiled. This difference is a measure of whether a particular layer of HuLys is generally more similar in conformation to D1.3 or to REI and NEW. We found that the CDRs of the mouse and humanized molecules are much more structurally similar than the HuLys CDRs are to the CDRs of NEW and REI. Likewise, in the distal layers of the Fv, the humanized framework is very similar to the human molecules at the three-dimensional level. Although the sequence–structure correlations at opposite poles of the Fv are intuitive and unremarkable, the sequence–structure correlation in layers of framework residues near the framework–CDR interface is counterintuitive. The humanized sequence remains very close to the human sequences, but the framework of the humanized molecule is conformationally more similar to the mouse structure. The HuLys CDRs, which have virtually no homology to NEW and REI, thus appear to induce a D1.3-like conformation in adjacent framework layers.
|
| Discussion |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Submitted: 7 October 1997
Revised: 2 December 1997
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation and the Department of the Army Breast Cancer Research Program (grant DAMD 17-97-1-7124).
Address correspondence to Jefferson Foote, Division of Molecular Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Ave. North, C3-168, PO Box 19024, Seattle, WA 98109-1024. Phone: 1-206-667-6720; Fax: 1-206-667-6524; E-mail: jfoote{at}fhcrc.org
1 Abbreviations used in this paper: C
, alpha carbon; CDR, complementarity determining region; Fv, dimer of immunoglobulin heavy and light chain variable domains; rms, root mean square. | References |
|---|
|
|
|---|
1 Jones PT, Dear PH, Foote J, Neuberger MS & Winter G. Replacing the complementarity-determining regions in a human antibody with those from a mouse, Nature, 1986, 321, 522–525.[Medline]
2 Morrison SL, Johnson MJ, Herzenberg LA & Oi VT. Chimeric human antibody molecules: mouse antigen-binding domains with human constant region domains, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1984, 81, 6851–6855.
3 Boulianne GL, Hozumi N & Shulman MJ. Production of functional chimaeric mouse/human antibody, Nature, 1984, 312, 643–646.[Medline]
4 Neuberger MS, Williams GT, Mitchell EB, Jouhal SS, Flanagan JG & Rabbitts TH. A hapten-specific chimaeric IgE antibody with human physiological effector function, Nature, 1985, 314, 268–270.[Medline]
5 Schaible G, Rappold GA, Pargent W & Zachau HG. The immunoglobulin kappa locus: polymorphism and haplotypes of Caucasoid and non-Caucasoid individuals, Hum Genet, 1993, 91, 261–267.[Medline]
6 Matsuda F, Shin EK, Nagaoka H, Matsumura R, Haino M, Fukita Y, Taka-Ishi S, Imai T, Riley JH, Anand R, Soeda E & Honjo T. Structure and physical map of 64 variable segments in the 3' 0.8-megabase region of the human immunoglobulin heavy-chain locus, Nat Genet, 1993, 3, 88–94.[Medline]
7 Cook GP, Tomlinson IM, Walter G, Riethman H, Carter NP, Buluwela L, Winter G & Rabbitts TH. A map of the human immunoglobulin VHlocus completed by analysis of the telomeric region of chromosome 14q, Nat Genet, 1994, 7, 162–168.[Medline]
8 Sasso EH, Buckner JH & Suzuki LA. Ethnic differences in polymorphism of an immunoglobulin VH3 gene, J Clin Invest, 1995, 96, 1591–1600.[Medline]
9 Milner, E.C.B. 1996. Organization of the human VH locus and rearrangement patterns of the VH3 gene family. In Human B Cell Superantigens. M. Zouali, editor. Springer, New York. 1–10.
10 Hale G, Dyer MJS, Clark MR, Phillips JM, Marcus R, Riechmann L, Winter G & Waldmann H. Remission induction in non-Hodgkin lymphoma with reshaped human monoclonal antibody CAMPATH-1H, Lancet, 1988, 2, 1394–1399.[Medline]
11 Wu TT & Kabat EA. An analysis of the sequences of the variable regions of Bence Jones proteins and myeloma light chains and their implications for antibody complementarity, J Exp Med, 1970, 132, 211–250.[Abstract]
12 Kabat EA & Wu TT. Attempts to locate complementarity-determining residues in the variable positions of light and heavy chains, Ann NY Acad Sci, 1971, 190, 382–393.[Medline]
13 Riechmann L, Clark M, Waldmann H & Winter G. Reshaping human antibodies for therapy, Nature, 1988, 332, 323–327.[Medline]
14 Holmes MA & Foote J. Structural consequences of humanizing an antibody, J Immunol, 1997, 158, 2192–2201.[Abstract]
15 Kabat, E.A., T.T. Wu, H.M. Perry, K.S. Gottesman, and K. Coeller. 1991. Sequences of Proteins of Immunological Interest. 5th ed. US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda.
16 Bhat TN, Bentley GA, Fischmann TO, Boulot G & Poljak RJ. Small rearrangements in structures of Fv and Fab fragments of antibody D1.3 on antigen binding, Nature, 1990, 347, 483–485.[Medline]
17 Amit AG, Mariuzza RA, Phillips SEV & Poljak RJ. Three-dimensional structure of an antigen-antibody complex at 2.8 Å resolution, Science, 1986, 233, 747–753.
18 Poljak RJ, Amzel LM, Avey HP, Chen BL, Phizackerly RP & Saul F. Three-dimensional structure of the Fab' fragment of a human immunoglobulin at 2.8 Å resolution, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1973, 70, 3305–3310.
19 Saul FA & Poljak RJ. Crystal structure of human immunoglobulin fragment Fab New refined at 2.0 Å resolution, Proteins, 1992, 14, 363–371.[Medline]
20 Epp O, Lattman EE, Schiffer M, Huber R & Palm W. The molecular structure of a dimer composed of the variable portions of the Bence-Jones protein REI refined at 2.0 Å resolution, Biochemistry, 1975, 14, 4943–4952.[Medline]
21 Foote J & Winter G. Antibody residues affecting conformation of the hypervariable loops, J Mol Biol, 1992, 224, 487–499.[Medline]
22 Carter P, Kelley RF, Rodrigues ML, Snedecor B, Covarrubias M, Velligan MD, Wong WLT, Rowland AM, Kotts CE, Carver ME et al.. High level Escherichia coli expression and production of a bivalent humanized antibody fragment. Bio/, Technology, 1992, 10, 163–167.
23 Neidhardt FC, Bloch PL & Smith DF. Culture medium for enterobacteria, J Bacteriol, 1974, 119, 736–747.
24 Skerra A & Plückthun A. Assembly of a functional immunoglobulin Fv fragment in Escherichia coli. , Science, 1988, 240, 1038–1041.
25 Otwinowski Z & Minor W. Processing of x-ray diffraction data collected in oscillation mode, Methods Enzymol, 1997, 276, 307–326.
26 Navaza J. AMoRe: an automated package for molecular replacement, Acta Crystallogr Sect A Found Crystallogr, 1994, 50, 157–163.
27 Brünger, A.T. 1992. X-PLOR Manual, Version 3.1. Yale University Press, New Haven.
28 Brünger AT. Free R value: a novel statistical quantity for assessing the accuracy of crystal structures, Nature, 1992, 355, 472–475.[Medline]
29 Kleywegt GJ & Jones TA. When freedom is given, liberties are taken, Structure, 1995, 3, 535–540.[Medline]
30 Tronrud DE, TenEyck LF & Matthews BW. An efficient general-purpose least-squares refinement program for macromolecular structures, Acta Crystallogr Sect A Found Crystallogr, 1987, 42, 489–501.
31 Laskowski RA, MacArthur MW, Moss DS & Thornton JM. PROCHECK: a program to check the stereochemistry of protein structures, J Appl Crystallogr, 1993, 26, 283–291.
32 Milner-White EJ, Ross BM, Ismail R, Belhadj-Mostefa K & Poet R. One type of gamma-turn, rather than the other gives rise to chain-reversal in proteins, J Mol Biol, 1988, 204, 777–782.[Medline]
33 McRee DE. A visual protein crystallographic software system for X11/Xview, J Mol Graphics, 1992, 10, 44–46.
34 Padlan EA. Anatomy of the antibody molecule, Mol Immunol, 1994, 31, 169–217.[Medline]
35 Bhat TN, Bentley GA, Boulot G, Green MI, Tello D, Dall'Acqua W, Souchon H, Schwarz FP, Mariuzza RA & Poljak RJ. Bound water molecules and conformational stabilization help mediate an antigen-antibody association, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1994, 91, 1089–1093.
36 Verhoeyen ME, Milstein C & Winter G. Reshaping human antibodies: grafting an antilysozyme activity, Science, 1988, 239, 1534–1536.
37 Herron JN, He XM, Ballard DW, Blier PR, Pace PE, Bothwell ALM, Voss EW Jr & Edmundson AB. An autoantibody to single-stranded DNA: comparison of the three-dimensional structures of the unliganded Fab and a deoxynucleotide-Fab complex, Proteins, 1991, 11, 159–175.[Medline]
38 Rini JM, Schulze-Gahmen U & Wilson IA. Structural evidence for induced fit as a mechanism for antibody-antigen recognition, Science, 1992, 255, 959–965.
39 Lancet D & Pecht I. Kinetic evidence for hapten-induced conformational transition in immunoglobulin MOPC 460, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1976, 73, 3548–3553.
40 Stevens FJ, Chang C-H & Schiffer M. Dual conformations of an immunoglobulin light-chain dimer: heterogeneity of antigen specificity and idiotope profile may result from multiple variable-domain interaction mechanisms, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1988, 85, 6895–6899.
41 Foote J & Milstein C. Conformational isomerism and the diversity of antibodies, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 1994, 91, 10370–10374.
42 Chothia C & Lesk AM. Canonical structures for the hypervariable regions of immunoglobulins, J Mol Biol, 1987, 96, 901–917.[Medline]
43 Tramontano A, Chothia C & Lesk AM. Framework residue 71 is a major determinant of the position and conformation of the second hypervariable region in the VHdomains of immunoglobulins, J Mol Biol, 1990, 215, 175–182.[Medline]
44 Braden BC, Fields BA & Poljak RJ. Conservation of water molecules in an antibody-antigen interaction, J Mol Recognit, 1995, 8, 317–325.[Medline]
45 Goldbaum FA, Schwarz FP, Eisenstein E, Cauerhff A, Mariuzza RA & Poljak RJ. The effect of water activity on the association constant and the enthalpy of reaction between lysozyme and the specific antibodies D1.3 and D44.1, J Mol Recognit, 1996, 9, 6–12.[Medline]
46 Kraulis PJ. MOLSCRIPT: a program to produce both detailed and schematic plots of protein structures, J Appl Crystallogr, 1991, 24, 946–950.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|