Prevention of hematogenous metastasis by neutralizing mice and its chimeric anti-Aggrus/podoplanin antibodies

The platelet aggregation-inducing factor, Aggrus (also known as podoplanin), is reported to contribute to cancer metastasis by mediating cancer cell-platelet interaction. Aggrus has been shown to be upregulated in many different types of cancers. Thus, not only the functional inhibition of Aggrus, but also its application as a cancer-specific antigen has therapeutic potential. Among a series of anti-Aggrus mAb established previously, no mouse anti-human Aggrus mAb exists that possesses the ability to neutralize platelet aggregation. For precise preclinical examinations of mouse and monkey models, the establishment of Aggrus-neutralizing mouse mAb and their chimeric Abs is needed. In this study, we established two mouse anti-human Aggrus mAb, P2-0 and HAG-3. A precise analysis of their epitopes revealed that P2-0 recognized the conformation near the bioactive O-glycosylation site at the Thr(52) residue. In contrast, HAG-3 recognized the amino-terminus side at a short distance from the conformation recognized by P2-0. We observed that only P2-0 attenuated Aggrus-induced platelet aggregation and Aggrus binding to its platelet receptor, that is, the C-type lectin-like receptor-2. Consistent with these data, only P2-0 prevented the experimental metastasis of human Aggrus-overexpressing CHO cells. Subsequently, we cloned the complementary determining region of P2-0 and produced the murine/human chimeric P2-0 antibody. This chimeric antibody maintained its inhibitory activity of Aggrus-induced platelet aggregation and experimental metastasis. Thus, P2-0 and its chimeric antibody are expected to aid the development of preclinical and clinical examinations of Aggrus-targeted cancer therapy.