Antibody humanization refers to the process of making animal antibodies more acceptable to the human immune system. Approximately one third of approved antibodies are derived from animal mAbs and are humanized during development.
Notes
- Reasons for humanization of antibodies:
- Recruit immune system through Fc-regions
- Increasing blood circulation half life
- Reduce or eliminate immunogenicity
- Approaches for humanization:
- Identify and humanize predicted immunogenic regions
- Graft animal CDRs onto human frameworks.
- Humanized mice circumvent the need to do this. It is worth noting that some humans can still produce blocking antibodies against antibodies designed by humanization, for reasons that are not well understood.