The mechanism and application of a superagonistic antibody for human IL-21

Abstract

AimsInterleukin-21 (IL-21) is a cytokine of common γ chain family, predominantly produced by activated CD4 T cells. IL-21 has broad immuno-stimulatory properties required for antibody affinity maturation and memory formation, as well as for maintenance of cytotoxic immunity from exhaustion during chronic infection. Indeed, recombinant human IL-21 (hIL-21) has shown great promise in phase I and II clinical trials to boost immunity in cancer immunotherapies. We took a novel approach to develop a unique agonistic antibody, 2P2 to hIL-21, which enhances bioactivity of hIL-21 to 10–100 folds in vitro and significantly prolonged half-life of hIL-21 in vivo. This project aims to identify the mechan..