Daratumumab Directly Induces Human Multiple Myeloma Cell Death and Acts Synergistically with Conventional and Novel Anti-Myeloma Drugs

Abstract 3013

Daratumumab is a novel fully human therapeutic CD38-specific monoclonal antibody (mAb) that is currently in phase I/II safety and dose finding clinical studies in MM. We recently demonstrated that daratumumab induces antibody dependent cytotoxicity (ADCC) and complement dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) against multiple myeloma (MM) cells (ASH Abstract #608, 2009). Significantly, daratumumab induces ADCC-mediated autologous lysis against MM patient cells. In addition, when cross-linked, daratumumab directly induces Ramos lymphoma cell death. We here studied whether daratumumab directly kills MM cells and whether daratumumab could be combined with other anti-MM drugs to further enhance its direct cytotoxicity. Direct daratumumab-induced MM cell death was determined using CellTiter-Glo luminescent cell viability assay and Annexin V/PI flow cytometry analysis, with or without goat anti-human IgG crosslinking. Following 48h incubation, daratumumab (0.1-10 μg/ml), when cross-linked, directly induced cytoxicity against dexamethasone (dex)-sensitive MM1S and dex-resistant MM1R cells, as evidenced by decreased cell viability in a dose-dependent manner. Importantly, cross-linked daratumumab increased caspase 3/7 activities in a dose-dependent fashion, as assessed by the Caspase-Glo® 3/7 luminescence assay. Furthermore, daratumumab upregulated Annexin V+ and Annexin V+/PI+ cells in freshly isolated CD138+ MM patient cells, from 7.7% to 20.6% and 10.9% to 15.4 %. Therefore, cross-linked daratumumab can directly trigger apoptosis of patient myeloma cells. Cell viability assay was further performed on MM1S cells when daratumumab (0.1, 1, 10 μg/ml) was combined with dex (0.5 and 1 μM) or bortezomib (2.5, 5, and 10 nM). Following 48–72h incubation with daratumumab, both dex and bortezomib synergistically inhibited MM cell viability, as determined by combination index (CI) < 0.5 at given combined concentrations of these drugs. Enhanced caspase 3/7 activation was also seen when daratumumab was combined with dex. To evaluate combination cytotoxicity induced by lenalidomide with daratumumab, peripheral blood mononuclear effector cells (PBMCs) from normal donors (n=2) were pretreated with lenalidomide (2 μM) for 3 days followed by daratumumab-mediated ADCC assays against MM1S cells. Using calcein-AM release measurements, lenalidomide-pretreated PBMCs further augmented daratumumab-induced MM1S cell lysis, whereas daratumumab-pretreated PBMCs did not alter ADCC. Taken together, our studies show that daratumumab directly induces MM cell death via activation of caspase 3/7 and daratumumab induced synergistic cytotoxicity with dex or bortezomib. Moreover, lenalidomide augments daratumumab-induced ADCC against MM cells. These results further support combination clinical trials of conventional and novel anti-MM drugs with daratumumab in MM.