Predicting tumor killing and T-cell activation by T-Cell Bispecific antibodies as a function of target expression: combining in vitro experiments with systems modeling

Abstract

Targeted T-cell redirection is a promising field in cancer immunotherapy. T-cell bispecific antibodies (TCBs) are novel antibody constructs capable of binding simultaneously to T-cells and tumor cells, allowing cross-linking and the formation of immunological synapses. This in turn results in T-cell activation, expansion and tumor killing. TCB activity depends on system related properties such as tumor target antigen expression as well as antibody properties such as binding affinities to target and T-cells. Here, we developed a systems model integrating in vitro data to elucidate further the mechanism of action and to quantify the cytotoxic effects as the relationship between targeted antigen expression and corresponding TCB activity. In the proposed model we capture relevant processes, linking immune synapse formation to T-cell activation, expansion and tumor killing for TCBs in vitro in order to differentiate the effect between tumor cells expressing high or low levels of the tumor antigen. We used cibisatamab, a TCB binding to carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), to target different tumor cell lines with high and low CEA expression in vitro. We developed a model to capture and predict our observations, as a learn-and-confirm cycle. While full tumor killing and substantial T-cell activation was observed in high expressing tumor cells, the model correctly predicted partial tumor killing and minimal T-cell activation in low expressing tumor cells when exposed to cibisatamab. Furthermore, the model successfully predicted cytotoxicity across a wide range of tumor cell lines, spanning from very low to high CEA expression.