Clinical administration of the anti-CD20 antibody IDEC-C2B8 can induce remission of low-grade B-cell lymphoma. Whereas it has been suggested that the main mechanisms of action are complement-mediated and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, we demonstrate that monoclonal antibody IDEC-C2B8 is a strong inducer of apoptosis in CD20-positive B-cell lymphoma cell lines reflecting differen...

BACKGROUND CD20 is a cell surface protein exclusively expressed on B cells. It is a clinically validated target for Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) and autoimmune diseases. The B cell receptor (BCR) plays an important role for development and proliferation of pre-B and B cells. Physical interaction of CD20 with BCR and components of the BCR signaling cascade has been reported but the consequences...

Tumors are infiltrated by macrophages, T and B-lymphocytes, which may favor tumor development by promoting angiogenesis, growth and invasion. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical relevance of the relative amount of macrophages (CD68⁺), T-cells (CD3⁺ and B-cells (CD20⁺) at the invasive front of breast carcinomas, and the expression of matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) and their inh...

Despite the rapid and widespread integration of chimeric CD20 monoclonal antibody (mAb), rituximab, into the management of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, its efficacy remains variable and often modest when used as a single agent. To develop more potent reagents, human immunoglobulin transgenic mice were used to generate a panel of immunoglobulin G1kappa (IgG1kappa) CD20 mAbs. All reagents bound strongly...

BACKGROUND BANK1 and BLK B-cell genetic markers have been reproducibly and convincingly found to contribute to susceptibility to systemic sclerosis (SSc). OBJECTIVES To determine whether other B-cell genetic markers including CD19, CD20, CD22 and CD24 polymorphisms affect susceptibility to SSc in the European Caucasian population. METHODS A case-control study was performed in 900 patients w...

Multiple sclerosis is a common leading cause of disability worldwide. CD20-expressing B cells play major role in multiple pathogenesis. Hence, anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies effectively deplete mainly by complement-dependent cytotoxicity, antibody-dependent cell-mediated phagocytosis, and cellular cytotoxicity. While the precise etiology remains unknown, it now recognized that environment...

Objective: To study whether the generated CD1a positive cells belong to the leukemic cells among patients with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. Materials and Methods: We used mononuclear cells from 3 patients with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia, from which two had monosomy 7. The mononuclear cells from these patients were cultured in RPMI/10%FCS without adding exogeneous growth factors fo...

We explored two cases of CD20-positive cytotoxic T cell lymphoma, a gastric lymphoma and an intestinal lymphoma. Neoplastic cells of the gastric lesion, possessing small cleaved-like nuclei with dense nuclear chromatin, infiltrated the mucosa in association with disappearance of the gastric glands. Neoplastic cells of the intestinal case had large, round nuclei with conspicuous nucleoli, with u...

Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that target the CD20 antigen on B cells are successfully used in the clinic for the depletion of B cells to treat various forms of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The first CD20 mAb, approved by the FDA in 1998, was rituximab (RTX) and since then it has been widely used to treat more than one million patients thus far. The success of RTX has led to a gen...