Trispecific antibodies offer a third way forward for anticancer immunotherapy

Garfall, Alfred L.; June, Carl H.

doi:10.1038/d41586-019-03495-3

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18 November 2019

Trispecific antibodies offer a third way forward for anticancer immunotherapy

Immunotherapy approaches seek to boost immune responses against cancer. A single antibody engineered to recognize three targets shows promise, when tested in animals, in improving the ability of T cells to target cancer.

Alfred L. Garfall⁰ &
Carl H. June¹

Alfred L. Garfall
1. Alfred L. Garfall is in the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
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Carl H. June
1. Carl H. June is in the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
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Antibodies with specificity for one target — called monoclonal antibodies — were the first cancer immunotherapy to achieve widespread clinical use. The therapeutic potency of antibodies can be amplified by engineering them to recognize two distinct molecular targets (termed antigens). These bispecific antibodies can simultaneously bind to cancer cells and immune cells called T cells, and this dual binding directs the T cell to unleash its cell-killing power towards the cancer cell. Writing in Nature Cancer, Wu et al.¹ now report the development of a trispecific antibody, one that has three targets: a cancer cell, a receptor that activates T cells, and a T-cell protein that promotes long-lasting T-cell activity against the cancer cell (Fig. 1).

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Nature 575, 450-451 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03495-3

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