Staphylococcal immunotherapeutics via donor selection and donor stimulation

Abstract

A method and composition for the passive immunization of patients infected with or susceptible to infection from Staphylococcus bacteria such as S. aureus and S. epidermidis infection is provided that includes the selection or preparation of a donor plasma pool with high antibody titers to carefully selected Staphylococcus adhesins or MSCRAMMs, or fragments or components thereof, or sequences with substantial homology thereto. The donor plasma pool can be prepared by combining individual blood or blood component samples which have higher than normal titers of antibodies to one or more of the selected adhesins or other proteins that bind to extracellular matrix proteins, or by administering carefully selected proteins or peptides to a host to induce the expression of desired antibodies, and subsequently recovering the enhanced high titer serum or plasma pool from the treated host.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation application of U.S. Ser. No. 10 / 091,494, filed Mar. 7, 2002, which was a divisional application of U.S. Ser. No. 09 / 386,960, filed Aug. 31, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,692,739, which claims the benefit of provisional application U.S. Ser. No. 60 / 098,449, filed Aug. 31, 1998.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The invention is in the field of biological products for the treatment, prevention and diagnosis of bacterial infections. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] The staphylococci are Gram-positive spherical cells, usually arranged in grape-like irregular clusters. Some are members of the normal flora of the skin and mucous membranes of humans, others cause suppuration, abscess formation, a variety of pyogenic infections, and even fatal septicemia. Pathogenic staphylococci often hemolyze blood, coagulate plasma, and produce a variety of extracellular enzymes and toxins. The most common type of food poisoning i...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a method and composition for passively immunizing patients with Staphylococcus bacteria infections. The method involves selecting and preparing a donor plasma pool with high antibodies to specific adhesins or proteins that bind to extracellular matrix proteins. The donor plasma pool is then purified and concentrated for use. The high antibody titer is important for effectively treating infections. The patent also provides kits for identifying plasma pools with high titers of the desired antibodies. The technical effect is the development of a method for immunizing patients with Staphylococcus bacteria infections using a donor plasma pool with high antibodies to specific adhesins or proteins that bind to extracellular matrix proteins.

Problems solved by technology

Hematogenously acquired bacterial arthritis remains a serious medical problem.

This rapidly progressive and highly destructive joint disease is difficult to eradicate.

Initial localized infections of wounds or indwelling medical devices can lead to more serious invasive infections such as septicemia, osteomyelitis, mastitis and endocarditis.

Vascular grafts, intravenous catheters, artificial heart valves, and cardiac assist devices are thrombogenic and prone to bacterial colonization.

S. aureus is the most damaging pathogen of such infections, and other Staphylococci bacteria such as S. epidermidis are also responsible for a significant amount of dangerous infections, particularly those associated with implanted devices.

Once the bacteria have successfully adhered to and colonized host tissues, their physiology is dramatically altered and damaging components such as toxins and proteolytic enzymes are secreted.

There has been an inconsistent and disappointing response to the use of immunoglobulins to prevent nosocomial infections, likely due to the variety of strains of bacteria found in hospitals and the emergence of new serotypes.

Infants who are deficient in antibody are susceptible to infections from these bacteria and bacteremia and sepsis are common.

Thus, despite the fact that the IVIG lots were made from large plasma donor pools, good opsonic antibody to S. epidermidis was not uniformly present.

Moreover, this study did not examine whether IVIG could be used to prevent or treat S. epidermidis infections or bacterial sepsis.

Thus, while suggesting that neonatal susceptibility to S. epidermidis might be related to impaired opsonic activity, these studies also suggested that many antibodies directed against S. epidermidis are not opsonic and would not be capable of providing protection when given passively to neonates.

These data suggest that IgG does not provide effective eradication of S. epidermidis from the blood.

In these patients, IgG was not protective since high levels of IgG antibody were associated with serious bacteremia and endocarditis.

Based on these studies, the protective role of IgG in S. epidermidis sepsis and endocarditis was questionable, especially in the presence of immaturity, debilitation, intralipid infusion, or immunosuppression.

Human patients are generally immunologically immature or debilitated.

Models that have used unusual strains or overwhelming bacterial doses, generally induce rapid fulminant death.

Moreover, the animal studies have yielded inconsistent results.

This model, however, presents a pathology which is very different from that seen in typically infected patients.

Moreover, this study provided little insight as to whether antibody could successfully prevent or treat S. epidermidis sepsis in immature or immunosuppressed patients.

There has been no compelling evidence that IVIG would be effective to treat S. epidermidis infections or sepsis, particularly where the patients are immature or immune suppressed or where multiple S. epidermidis serotypes are involved.

In addition, there have been no U.S. patents which describe the effective use of IVIG therapy in conjunction with antibodies to MSCRAMMs such as described above.

Similarly, immunization of rabbits with whole cells of S. aureus could not prevent or modify any stage in the development of experimental endocarditis, reduce the incidence of renal abscess, or lower the bacterial load in infected kidneys (Greenberg, D. P., et al., Infect Immun, 55:3030-3034, 1987).

Currently there is no FDA approved vaccine for the prevention of S. aureus infections.

Moreover, these vaccination regimens were not able to treat a variety of bacterial strains.

Two possible explanations for the inability of StaphVAX to prevent infections related to peritoneal dialysis in vaccinated patients are that the immunogenicity of the vaccine was too low due to suboptimal vaccine dosing or that antibodies in the bloodstream are unable to affect infection in certain anatomic areas, such as the peritoneum.

Endocarditis in immunized and non-immunized control rats was induced by catheterization via the right carotid artery, resulting in damaged aortic heart valves which became covered by fibrinogen and fibronectin.

Mamo then found that vaccination with FnBP-A combined with staphylococcal alpha toxoid did not improve the protection (Mamo, et al., Vaccine, 12:988-992, 1994).

However, immunization did not reduce the incidences of peritonitis, catheter-related infections or nasal colonization among vaccine recipients.

The lack of protective efficacy in this trial was attributed to a suboptimal vaccine formulation.

Immunization with formaldehyde-detoxified alpha toxin does not protect animals from systemic or localized infections, although it may reduce the clinical severity of the infections (Ekstedt, R. D., The Staphylococci, 385-418, 1972)

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