Investigating the Agonistic Requirements of anti human 4-1BB monoclonal antibodies

In recent decades, immunotherapy has emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for cancer. A key factor to its success has been the ability to use monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to activate cytotoxic T cell responses against tumours by blocking T cell inhibitory molecules. However, this approach is only effective in a fraction of tumour types and many patients do not respond, highlighting the need for novel immune-activating therapies to improve therapeutic outcomes. mAbs targeting the immunostimulatory receptor 4-1BB hold promise as therapeutics for cancer, however insight into the properties modulating their efficacy as immune agonists is lacking. For mAbs targeting other receptors of the same family as 4-1BB, certain molecular characteristics, such as epitope and mAb isotype, have been shown to influence the strength of their agonistic activity.