Immunotherapy in a human ovarian cancer xenograft model with two bispecific monoclonal antibodies: OV-TL 3/CD3 and OC/TR

The bispecific antibodies (bs-mAbs) OV-TL 3/CD3 and OC/TR (MOv18/CD3) efficiently mediate ovarian tumor cell lysis by cytotoxic T cells and activated peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) in vitro. OV-TL 3/CD3 and OC/TR are reactive with tumor-associated antigens on ovarian carcinoma cells (OA3 and CA-MOv18, respectively), and CD3 on activated PBL, bridging both cells and simultaneously inducing activation of the effector cells. In a comparative study we investigated the therapeutic efficacy of OV-TL 3/CD3 and OC/TR by targeting activated PBL with the bs-mAbs against intraperitoneally growing NIH:OVAR-3 human ovarian carcinoma cells. As they have good tumor localization characteristics, HPLC-purified bispecific F(ab′)₂ fragments were used to target highly active PHA and IL-2-stimulated PBL effector cells. The efficacy of OV-TL 3/CD3 was compared to OC/TR with respect to tumor- associated antigen (TAA) binding on NIH:OVCAR-3 ascites cells and NIH:OVCAR- 3 tumor cell lysis in vitro. In this report we show that ip ovarian cancer- bearing nude mice treated with IL-2 and activated PBL coated with bispecific F(ab′)₂ had a significantly longer survival than the untreated mice. No significant difference in survival was found between the OC/TR or OV-TL 3/CD3 bispecific antibody, although MOv18 expression was higher on NIH:OVCAR-3 ascites cells and PBL targeted with OC/TR induced slightly higher tumor cell lysis in vitro. Thus, the therapeutic efficacy of these bs-mAbs in vivo could not be predicted by TAA expression or bs-mAbs-mediated tumor cell lysis in vitro.