A biotechnology company is developing monoclonal antibodies to
cure encephalomyelitis (EAE).

The client transferred a protocol to Animascope to prepare a mouse model of disease and outsourced
to Animascope a biodistribution study for the therapeutic antibody. The blood-brain barrier of the mice was permeabilised by pertussis toxin. Animascope radio-iodinated the antibody and performed a preliminary distribution study by autoradiography and liquid scintillation counting, in a time course. After one hour from the injection, the antibody was uptaken at very low level. After 21 hours, the uptake was somehow incremented. Nevertheless, the uptake remained low in most tissues and much lower than expected
in the brain.

The results suggested that the disease model could be improved. Towards this goal, Animascope proposed immunolocalisation and immunobinding studies to assess the affinity of the antibody for the the target antigen and to quantify the expression of the antigen. Moreover, Animascope proposed in vivo imaging by micro-SPECT, to investigate the biodistribution of the antibody and the antigen in further studies on EAE models. In conclusion, a biodistribution project lead to a work of model optimisation.