humanized mice to study FcγR function

Abstract

Passive immunotherapy represents a promising therapeutic intervention for a number of neoplastic, chronic inflammatory, and infectious diseases, with several monoclonal antibodies currently under development or already in use in the clinic. While Fab-antigen interactions play a crucial role in the activity of an antibody, it has become clear that Fc-mediated effector functions are involved during antibody-mediated activities in vivo. A complete understanding of the contributions of effector activities mediated by an antibody during its in vivo function is required for the development of antibodies with improved therapeutic efficacies. Animal models that are commonly used for the preclinical evaluation of antibodies include murine and non-human primate species, whose FcγRs present substantial structural, functional, and genetic variation compared with their human counterparts. Therefore, the use of such animal models provides limited information on the role of human IgG Fc-FcγR interactions during the in vivo activities of antibodies intended for human therapeutics. In this chapter, we describe the development and evaluation of an FcγR-humanized mouse model for the study of human FcγR function in vivo. In this model, endogenous mouse FcγR genes have been deleted and human FcγRs are expressed as transgenes that faithfully recapitulate the unique pattern of human FcγR expression. Evaluation of the in vivo activities of a number of cytotoxic or therapeutic antibodies using FcγR-humanized mice provided useful insights into human IgG Fc effector function. This mouse model has become a vital preclinical model for testing therapeutic human antibodies to treat malignancies, autoimmunity, inflammation, and infectious disease.