4 Nov 2024
The Pirbright Institute has carried out the first comparative study of traditionally used Göttingen minipigs against the larger model for testing duration of laboratory-made monoclonal antibodies.
Paul Imrie
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Image: Pirbright
Scientists at The Pirbright Institute have outlined how commercial outbred pigs are reliable models to test how quickly therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) disappear from the human body.
Use of Göttingen minipigs is established in translational medical research and is a preferred model, but the animals are expensive.
Very few studies have been conducted on commercial outbred pigs, and none have compared the two breeds until Pirbright scientists critically evaluated the rate of disappearance of mAbs in outbred pigs compared to widely used Göttingen minipigs.
Laboratory-made mAbs recognise, attach to and kill viruses, bacteria or cancer cells, and their use is increasingly important in human medicine. But knowing how long they persist in the body after injection is important so treatment can be optimised.
Immunology specialist Basu Paudyal, a leading Pirbright author of the study, said: “Our results indicate that despite the rapid growth rates of outbred pigs, they can serve as a practical alternative to minipigs for evaluating mAbs.
“We believe that this work indicates that outbred pigs can be a reliable model for mAb testing, which could significantly impact the field of therapeutic development, potentially bridging the gap between small animals and human trials.”
Pirbright produced the findings in collaboration with two US companies – Certara in Pennsylvania and Milad Pharmaceutical Consulting in Plymouth, Michigan – while the work was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
The full study is in Frontiers in Immunology.
