www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/ Oncotarget, 2017, Vol. 8, (No. 28), pp: 45432-45446 Research Paper ADCC responses and blocking of EGFR-mediated signaling and cell growth by combining the anti-EGFR antibodies imgatuzumab and cetuximab in NSCLC cells Arjan Kol1, Anton Terwisscha van Scheltinga2, Martin Pool1, Christian Gerdes3, Elisabeth de Vries1 and Steven de Jong1 1Department of Medical Oncology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands 2Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands 3Roche Pharma Research & Early Development, Roche Innovation Center Zürich, Schlieren, Switzerland Correspondence to: Steven de Jong, email:
[email protected] Keywords: non-small cell lung cancer, EGFR, imgatuzumab, cetuximab, antibodies Received: October 19, 2016 Accepted: March 30, 2017 Published: April 17, 2017 Copyright: Kol et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. ABSTRACT Imgatuzumab is a novel glycoengineered anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibody optimized to induce both antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) and EGFR signal transduction inhibition. We investigated anti- EGFR monoclonal antibodies imgatuzumab and cetuximab–induced internalization and membranous turnover of EGFR, and whether this affected imgatuzumab–mediated ADCC responses and growth inhibition of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. In a panel of wild-type EGFR expressing human NSCLC cell lines, membranous and total EGFR levels were downregulated more effectively by imgatuzumab when compared with cetuximab.