Cloned Calves Produce Human Antibodies

Scientists have used cloning techniques to produce four calves that express a human chromosome fragment coding for the broad range of human antibodies. The research was reported in the August 12, 2002, online edition of Nature Biotechnology.

The project was part of an ongoing joint effort between two companies to develop a system for the production of human polyclonal antibody-based therapeutics that could be used to prevent or treat a wide variety of diseases. The companies involved are Hematech, LLC (Sioux Falls, SD, USA) and Kirin Brewery's Pharmaceutical Division (Tokyo, Japan).

Kirin scientists prepared a human chromosome fragment containing the un-rearranged sequences of two human genes that code for IgH and Ig-lambda, the two immunoglobulin proteins that make up the antibody molecule. The fragment was transferred from a hamster carrier cell line to a bovine cell line by a micro-cell fusion approach. Hematech scientists fused the bovine cells containing the human chromosome fragment into cow eggs and transferred the resulting embryos into recipient cows to produce four cloned, transchromosomic calves. The human chromosome fragment was retained in the calves, and the human antibody genes carried on the fragment underwent normal processing. Human antibody proteins were later detected in the blood of the newborn calves.

"A cow carrying complete human antibody genes could simply be immunized against the target disease agent and human antibodies could be collected in a couple of months,” said James Robl, Ph.D., president and chief scientific officer of Hematech.




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