Nanovesicles released by OKT3 hybridoma express fully active antibodies

• Main Authors: Mariantonia Logozzi, Rossella Di Raimo, Francesca Properzi, Stefano Barca, Daniela F. Angelini, Davide Mizzoni, Mario Falchi, Luca Battistini, Stefano Fais
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2021-01-01
• Series: Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry
• Subjects: exosomes; extracellular vesicles; immunoglobulins; okt3 hybridoma cell line
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14756366.2020.1852401
• ISSN: 1475-6366; 1475-6374

Recent findings have shown that nanovesicles preparations from either primary immune cells culture supernatants or plasma contain immunoglobulins, suggesting that a natural way of antibody production may be through exosome release. To verify this hypothesis, we used the OKT3 hybridoma clone, which produces a murine IgG2a monoclonal antibody used to reduce rejection in patients undergoing organ transplantation. We showed exosome-associated immunoglobulins in hybridoma supernatants, by Western blot, nanoscale flow cytometry and immunocapture-based ELISA. The OKT3-exo was also being able to trigger cytokines production in both CD4 and CD8 T cells. These results show that nanovesicles contain immunoglobulin and could be used for immunotherapy. These data could lead to a new approach to improve the effectiveness of therapeutic antibodies by exploiting their natural property to be expressed on nanovesicle membrane, that probably render them more stable and as a consequence more capable to interact with their specific ligand in the best way.