1
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Madsen AV, Mejias-Gomez O, Pedersen LE, Preben Morth J, Kristensen P, Jenkins TP, Goletz S. Structural trends in antibody-antigen binding interfaces: a computational analysis of 1833 experimentally determined 3D structures. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2024; 23:199-211. [PMID: 38161735 PMCID: PMC10755492 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2023.11.056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2023] [Revised: 11/27/2023] [Accepted: 11/28/2023] [Indexed: 01/03/2024] Open
Abstract
Antibodies are attractive therapeutic candidates due to their ability to bind cognate antigens with high affinity and specificity. Still, the underlying molecular rules governing the antibody-antigen interface remain poorly understood, making in silico antibody design inherently difficult and keeping the discovery and design of novel antibodies a costly and laborious process. This study investigates the characteristics of antibody-antigen binding interfaces through a computational analysis of more than 850,000 atom-atom contacts from the largest reported set of antibody-antigen complexes with 1833 nonredundant, experimentally determined structures. The analysis compares binding characteristics of conventional antibodies and single-domain antibodies (sdAbs) targeting both protein- and peptide antigens. We find clear patterns in the number antibody-antigen contacts and amino acid frequencies in the paratope. The direct comparison of sdAbs and conventional antibodies helps elucidate the mechanisms employed by sdAbs to compensate for their smaller size and the fact that they harbor only half the number of complementarity-determining regions compared to conventional antibodies. Furthermore, we pinpoint antibody interface hotspot residues that are often found at the binding interface and the amino acid frequencies at these positions. These findings have direct potential applications in antibody engineering and the design of improved antibody libraries.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas V. Madsen
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Oscar Mejias-Gomez
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Lasse E. Pedersen
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - J. Preben Morth
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Peter Kristensen
- Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
| | - Timothy P. Jenkins
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Steffen Goletz
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
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2
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Gavade A, Nagraj AK, Patel R, Pais R, Dhanure P, Scheele J, Seiz W, Patil J. Understanding the Specific Implications of Amino Acids in the Antibody Development. Protein J 2024; 43:405-424. [PMID: 38724751 DOI: 10.1007/s10930-024-10201-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/21/2024] [Indexed: 06/01/2024]
Abstract
As the demand for immunotherapy to treat and manage cancers, infectious diseases and other disorders grows, a comprehensive understanding of amino acids and their intricate role in antibody engineering has become a prime requirement. Naturally produced antibodies may not have the most suitable amino acids at the complementarity determining regions (CDR) and framework regions, for therapeutic purposes. Therefore, to enhance the binding affinity and therapeutic properties of an antibody, the specific impact of certain amino acids on the antibody's architecture must be thoroughly studied. In antibody engineering, it is crucial to identify the key amino acid residues that significantly contribute to improving antibody properties. Therapeutic antibodies with higher binding affinity and improved functionality can be achieved through modifications or substitutions with highly suitable amino acid residues. Here, we have indicated the frequency of amino acids and their association with the binding free energy in CDRs. The review also analyzes the experimental outcome of two studies that reveal the frequency of amino acids in CDRs and provides their significant correlation between the outcomes. Additionally, it discusses the various bond interactions within the antibody structure and antigen binding. A detailed understanding of these amino acid properties should assist in the analysis of antibody sequences and structures needed for designing and enhancing the overall performance of therapeutic antibodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Akshata Gavade
- Innoplexus Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, 7Th Floor, Midas Tower, Hinjawadi, Pune, Maharashtra, 411057, India
| | - Anil Kumar Nagraj
- Innoplexus Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, 7Th Floor, Midas Tower, Hinjawadi, Pune, Maharashtra, 411057, India
| | - Riya Patel
- Innoplexus Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, 7Th Floor, Midas Tower, Hinjawadi, Pune, Maharashtra, 411057, India
| | - Roylan Pais
- Innoplexus Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, 7Th Floor, Midas Tower, Hinjawadi, Pune, Maharashtra, 411057, India
| | - Pratiksha Dhanure
- Innoplexus Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, 7Th Floor, Midas Tower, Hinjawadi, Pune, Maharashtra, 411057, India
| | | | | | - Jaspal Patil
- Innoplexus Consulting Services Pvt Ltd, 7Th Floor, Midas Tower, Hinjawadi, Pune, Maharashtra, 411057, India.
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3
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Garcia‐Agudo LF, Shi Z, Smith IF, Kramár EA, Tran K, Kawauchi S, Wang S, Collins S, Walker A, Shi K, Neumann J, Liang HY, Da Cunha C, Milinkeviciute G, Morabito S, Miyoshi E, Rezaie N, Gomez‐Arboledas A, Arvilla AM, Ghaemi DI, Tenner AJ, LaFerla FM, Wood MA, Mortazavi A, Swarup V, MacGregor GR, Green KN. BIN1 K358R suppresses glial response to plaques in mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimers Dement 2024; 20:2922-2942. [PMID: 38460121 PMCID: PMC11032570 DOI: 10.1002/alz.13767] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2023] [Revised: 01/16/2024] [Accepted: 01/17/2024] [Indexed: 03/11/2024]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION The BIN1 coding variant rs138047593 (K358R) is linked to Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease (LOAD) via targeted exome sequencing. METHODS To elucidate the functional consequences of this rare coding variant on brain amyloidosis and neuroinflammation, we generated BIN1K358R knock-in mice using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. These mice were subsequently bred with 5xFAD transgenic mice, which serve as a model for Alzheimer's pathology. RESULTS The presence of the BIN1K358R variant leads to increased cerebral amyloid deposition, with a dampened response of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, but not microglia, at both the cellular and transcriptional levels. This correlates with decreased neurofilament light chain in both plasma and brain tissue. Synaptic densities are significantly increased in both wild-type and 5xFAD backgrounds homozygous for the BIN1K358R variant. DISCUSSION The BIN1 K358R variant modulates amyloid pathology in 5xFAD mice, attenuates the astrocytic and oligodendrocytic responses to amyloid plaques, decreases damage markers, and elevates synaptic densities. HIGHLIGHTS BIN1 rs138047593 (K358R) coding variant is associated with increased risk of LOAD. BIN1 K358R variant increases amyloid plaque load in 12-month-old 5xFAD mice. BIN1 K358R variant dampens astrocytic and oligodendrocytic response to plaques. BIN1 K358R variant decreases neuronal damage in 5xFAD mice. BIN1 K358R upregulates synaptic densities and modulates synaptic transmission.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Zechuan Shi
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Ian F. Smith
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Enikö A. Kramár
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Katelynn Tran
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Shimako Kawauchi
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Transgenic Mouse Facility, ULAR, Office of Research, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Shuling Wang
- Transgenic Mouse Facility, ULAR, Office of Research, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Sherilyn Collins
- Transgenic Mouse Facility, ULAR, Office of Research, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Amber Walker
- Transgenic Mouse Facility, ULAR, Office of Research, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Kai‐Xuan Shi
- Transgenic Mouse Facility, ULAR, Office of Research, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Jonathan Neumann
- Transgenic Mouse Facility, ULAR, Office of Research, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Heidi Yahan Liang
- Department of Developmental and Cell BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Celia Da Cunha
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Giedre Milinkeviciute
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Samuel Morabito
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Emily Miyoshi
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Narges Rezaie
- Department of Developmental and Cell BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Angela Gomez‐Arboledas
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Adrian Mendoza Arvilla
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Daryan Iman Ghaemi
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Andrea J. Tenner
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Department of Molecular Biology & BiochemistryUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory MedicineUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Frank M. LaFerla
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Marcelo A. Wood
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Ali Mortazavi
- Department of Developmental and Cell BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Vivek Swarup
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Grant R. MacGregor
- Transgenic Mouse Facility, ULAR, Office of Research, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Department of Developmental and Cell BiologyUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
| | - Kim N. Green
- Department of Neurobiology and BehaviorUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
- Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, University of CaliforniaIrvineCaliforniaUSA
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Lecerf M, Lacombe RV, Dimitrov JD. Polyreactivity of antibodies from different B-cell subpopulations is determined by distinct sequence patterns of variable region. Front Immunol 2023; 14:1266668. [PMID: 38077343 PMCID: PMC10710144 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1266668] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2023] [Accepted: 10/25/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
An antibody molecule that can bind to multiple distinct antigens is defined as polyreactive. In the present study, we performed statistical analyses to assess sequence correlates of polyreactivity of >600 antibodies cloned from different B-cell types of healthy humans. The data revealed several sequence patterns of variable regions of heavy and light immunoglobulin chains that determine polyreactivity. The most prominent identified patterns were increased number of basic amino acid residues, reduced frequency of acidic residues, increased number of aromatic and hydrophobic residues, and longer length of CDR L1. Importantly, our study revealed that antibodies isolated from different B-cell populations used distinct sequence patterns (or combinations of them) for polyreactive antigen binding. Furthermore, we combined the data from sequence analyses with molecular modeling of selected polyreactive antibodies and demonstrated that human antibodies can use multiple pathways for achieving antigen-binding promiscuity. These data reconcile some contradictions in the literature regarding the determinants of antibody polyreactivity. Moreover, our study demonstrates that the mechanism of polyreactivity of antibodies evolves during immune response and might be tailored to specific functional properties of different B-cell compartments. Finally, these data can be of use for efforts in the development and engineering of therapeutic antibodies.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Jordan D. Dimitrov
- Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, INSERM, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
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5
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Arakawa T, Akuta T. Mechanistic Insight into Poly-Reactivity of Immune Antibodies upon Acid Denaturation or Arginine Mutation in Antigen-Binding Regions. Antibodies (Basel) 2023; 12:64. [PMID: 37873861 PMCID: PMC10594486 DOI: 10.3390/antib12040064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2023] [Revised: 10/03/2023] [Accepted: 10/06/2023] [Indexed: 10/25/2023] Open
Abstract
The poly-reactivity of antibodies is defined as their binding to specific antigens as well as to related proteins and also to unrelated targets. Poly-reactivity can occur in individual molecules of natural serum antibodies, likely due to their conformation flexibility, and, for therapeutic antibodies, it plays a critical role in their clinical development. On the one hand, it can enhance their binding to target antigens and cognate receptors, but, on the other hand, it may lead to a loss of antibody function by binding to off-target proteins. Notably, poly-reactivity has been observed in antibodies subjected to treatments with dissociating, destabilizing or denaturing agents, in particular acidic pH, a common step in the therapeutic antibody production process involving the elution of Protein-A bound antibodies and viral clearance using low pH buffers. Additionally, poly-reactivity can emerge during the affinity maturation in the immune system, such as the germinal center. This review delves into the underlying potential causes of poly-reactivity, highlighting the importance of conformational flexibility, which can be further augmented by the acid denaturation of antibodies and the introduction of arginine mutations into the complementary regions of antibody-variable domains. The focus is placed on a particular antibody's acid conformation, meticulously characterized through circular dichroism, differential scanning calorimetry, and sedimentation velocity analyses. By gaining a deeper understanding of these mechanisms, we aim to shed light on the complexities of antibody poly-reactivity and its implications for therapeutic applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tsutomu Arakawa
- Alliance Protein Laboratories, 13380 Pantera Road, San Diego, CA 92130, USA
| | - Teruo Akuta
- Research and Development Division, Kyokuto Pharmaceutical Industrial Co., Ltd., 3333-26 Aza-Asayama, Kamitezuna, Takahagi-shi 318-0004, Ibaraki, Japan;
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6
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Ausserwöger H, Krainer G, Welsh TJ, Thorsteinson N, de Csilléry E, Sneideris T, Schneider MM, Egebjerg T, Invernizzi G, Herling TW, Lorenzen N, Knowles TPJ. Surface patches induce nonspecific binding and phase separation of antibodies. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2210332120. [PMID: 37011217 PMCID: PMC10104583 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2210332120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2022] [Accepted: 02/06/2023] [Indexed: 04/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Nonspecific interactions are a key challenge in the successful development of therapeutic antibodies. The tendency for nonspecific binding of antibodies is often difficult to reduce by rational design, and instead, it is necessary to rely on comprehensive screening campaigns. To address this issue, we performed a systematic analysis of the impact of surface patch properties on antibody nonspecificity using a designer antibody library as a model system and single-stranded DNA as a nonspecificity ligand. Using an in-solution microfluidic approach, we find that the antibodies tested bind to single-stranded DNA with affinities as high as KD = 1 µM. We show that DNA binding is driven primarily by a hydrophobic patch in the complementarity-determining regions. By quantifying the surface patches across the library, the nonspecific binding affinity is shown to correlate with a trade-off between the hydrophobic and total charged patch areas. Moreover, we show that a change in formulation conditions at low ionic strengths leads to DNA-induced antibody phase separation as a manifestation of nonspecific binding at low micromolar antibody concentrations. We highlight that phase separation is driven by a cooperative electrostatic network assembly mechanism of antibodies with DNA, which correlates with a balance between positive and negative charged patches. Importantly, our study demonstrates that both nonspecific binding and phase separation are controlled by the size of the surface patches. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of surface patches and their role in conferring antibody nonspecificity and its macroscopic manifestation in phase separation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannes Ausserwöger
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Georg Krainer
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Timothy J. Welsh
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Nels Thorsteinson
- Research and Development, Chemical Computing Group, Montreal, QuebecH3A 2R7, Canada
| | - Ella de Csilléry
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Tomas Sneideris
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Matthias M. Schneider
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Thomas Egebjerg
- Global Research Technologies, Novo Nordisk A/S2760Måløv, Denmark
| | | | - Therese W. Herling
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
| | - Nikolai Lorenzen
- Global Research Technologies, Novo Nordisk A/S2760Måløv, Denmark
| | - Tuomas P. J. Knowles
- Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB2 1EW, United Kingdom
- Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, CambridgeCB3 0HE, United Kingdom
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7
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Mejias-Gomez O, Madsen AV, Skovgaard K, Pedersen LE, Morth JP, Jenkins TP, Kristensen P, Goletz S. A window into the human immune system: comprehensive characterization of the complexity of antibody complementary-determining regions in functional antibodies. MAbs 2023; 15:2268255. [PMID: 37876265 PMCID: PMC10601506 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2023.2268255] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2023] [Accepted: 10/04/2023] [Indexed: 10/26/2023] Open
Abstract
The human immune system uses antibodies to neutralize foreign antigens. They are composed of heavy and light chains, both with constant and variable regions. The variable region has six hypervariable loops, also known as complementary-determining regions (CDRs) that determine antibody diversity and antigen specificity. Knowledge of their significance, and certain residues present in these areas, is vital for antibody therapeutics development. This study includes an analysis of more than 11,000 human antibody sequences from the International Immunogenetics information system (IMGT). The analysis included parameters such as length distribution, overall amino acid diversity, amino acid frequency per CDR and residue position within antibody chains. Overall, our findings confirm existing knowledge, such as CDRH3's high length diversity and amino acid variability, increased aromatic residue usage, particularly tyrosine, charged and polar residues like aspartic acid, serine, and the flexible residue glycine. Specific residue positions within each CDR influence these occurrences, implying a unique amino acid type distribution pattern. We compared amino acid type usage in CDRs and non-CDR regions, both in globular and transmembrane proteins, which revealed distinguishing features, such as increased frequency of tyrosine, serine, aspartic acid, and arginine. These findings should prove useful for future optimization, improvement of affinity, synthetic antibody library design, or the creation of antibodies de-novo in silico.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oscar Mejias-Gomez
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Andreas V. Madsen
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Kerstin Skovgaard
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Lasse E. Pedersen
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - J. Preben Morth
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Timothy P. Jenkins
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
| | - Peter Kristensen
- Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
| | - Steffen Goletz
- Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
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8
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Yang YX, Wang P, Zhu BT. Binding affinity prediction for antibody-protein antigen complexes: A machine learning analysis based on interface and surface areas. J Mol Graph Model 2023; 118:108364. [PMID: 36356467 DOI: 10.1016/j.jmgm.2022.108364] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2022] [Revised: 10/08/2022] [Accepted: 10/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Specific antibodies can bind to protein antigens with high affinity and specificity, and this property makes them one of the best protein-based therapeutics. Accurate prediction of antibody‒protein antigen binding affinity is crucial for designing effective antibodies. The current predictive methods for protein‒protein binding affinity usually fail to predict the binding affinity of an antibody‒protein antigen complex with a comparable level of accuracy. Here, new models specific for antibody‒antigen binding affinity prediction are developed according to the different types of interface and surface areas present in antibody‒antigen complex. The contacts-based descriptors are also employed to construct or train different models specific for antibody‒protein antigen binding affinity prediction. The results of this study show that (i) the area-based descriptors are slightly better than the contacts-based descriptors in terms of the predictive power; (ii) the new models specific for antibody‒protein antigen binding affinity prediction are superior to the previously-used general models for predicting the protein‒protein binding affinities; (iii) the performances of the best area-based and contacts-based models developed in this work are better than the performances of a recently-developed graph-based model (i.e., CSM-AB) specific for antibody‒protein antigen binding affinity prediction. The new models developed in this work would not only help understand the mechanisms underlying antibody‒protein antigen interactions, but would also be of some applicable utility in the design and virtual screening of antibody-based therapeutics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yong Xiao Yang
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Steroid Drug Discovery and Development, School of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518172, China
| | - Pan Wang
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Steroid Drug Discovery and Development, School of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518172, China; Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, 518055, China
| | - Bao Ting Zhu
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Steroid Drug Discovery and Development, School of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518172, China; Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
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9
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Svilenov HL, Arosio P, Menzen T, Tessier P, Sormanni P. Approaches to expand the conventional toolbox for discovery and selection of antibodies with drug-like physicochemical properties. MAbs 2023; 15:2164459. [PMID: 36629855 PMCID: PMC9839375 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2022.2164459] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2022] [Revised: 12/22/2022] [Accepted: 12/29/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Antibody drugs should exhibit not only high-binding affinity for their target antigens but also favorable physicochemical drug-like properties. Such drug-like biophysical properties are essential for the successful development of antibody drug products. The traditional approaches used in antibody drug development require significant experimentation to produce, optimize, and characterize many candidates. Therefore, it is attractive to integrate new methods that can optimize the process of selecting antibodies with both desired target-binding and drug-like biophysical properties. Here, we summarize a selection of techniques that can complement the conventional toolbox used to de-risk antibody drug development. These techniques can be integrated at different stages of the antibody development process to reduce the frequency of physicochemical liabilities in antibody libraries during initial discovery and to co-optimize multiple antibody features during early-stage antibody engineering and affinity maturation. Moreover, we highlight biophysical and computational approaches that can be used to predict physical degradation pathways relevant for long-term storage and in-use stability to reduce the need for extensive experimentation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hristo L. Svilenov
- Laboratory of General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium
| | - Paolo Arosio
- Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Tim Menzen
- Coriolis Pharma Research GmbH, Martinsried, 82152, Germany
| | - Peter Tessier
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Pietro Sormanni
- Centre for Misfolding Diseases, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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10
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Harvey EP, Shin JE, Skiba MA, Nemeth GR, Hurley JD, Wellner A, Shaw AY, Miranda VG, Min JK, Liu CC, Marks DS, Kruse AC. An in silico method to assess antibody fragment polyreactivity. Nat Commun 2022; 13:7554. [PMID: 36477674 PMCID: PMC9729196 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35276-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2022] [Accepted: 11/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Antibodies are essential biological research tools and important therapeutic agents, but some exhibit non-specific binding to off-target proteins and other biomolecules. Such polyreactive antibodies compromise screening pipelines, lead to incorrect and irreproducible experimental results, and are generally intractable for clinical development. Here, we design a set of experiments using a diverse naïve synthetic camelid antibody fragment (nanobody) library to enable machine learning models to accurately assess polyreactivity from protein sequence (AUC > 0.8). Moreover, our models provide quantitative scoring metrics that predict the effect of amino acid substitutions on polyreactivity. We experimentally test our models' performance on three independent nanobody scaffolds, where over 90% of predicted substitutions successfully reduced polyreactivity. Importantly, the models allow us to diminish the polyreactivity of an angiotensin II type I receptor antagonist nanobody, without compromising its functional properties. We provide a companion web-server that offers a straightforward means of predicting polyreactivity and polyreactivity-reducing mutations for any given nanobody sequence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edward P Harvey
- Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Jung-Eun Shin
- Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Meredith A Skiba
- Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Genevieve R Nemeth
- Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Joseph D Hurley
- Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Alon Wellner
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92692, USA
| | - Ada Y Shaw
- Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Victor G Miranda
- Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Joseph K Min
- Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Chang C Liu
- Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92692, USA
| | - Debora S Marks
- Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA.
| | - Andrew C Kruse
- Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
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11
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Ausserwöger H, Schneider MM, Herling TW, Arosio P, Invernizzi G, Knowles TPJ, Lorenzen N. Non-specificity as the sticky problem in therapeutic antibody development. Nat Rev Chem 2022; 6:844-861. [PMID: 37117703 DOI: 10.1038/s41570-022-00438-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Antibodies are highly potent therapeutic scaffolds with more than a hundred different products approved on the market. Successful development of antibody-based drugs requires a trade-off between high target specificity and target binding affinity. In order to better understand this problem, we here review non-specific interactions and explore their fundamental physicochemical origins. We discuss the role of surface patches - clusters of surface-exposed amino acid residues with similar physicochemical properties - as inducers of non-specific interactions. These patches collectively drive interactions including dipole-dipole, π-stacking and hydrophobic interactions to complementary moieties. We elucidate links between these supramolecular assembly processes and macroscopic development issues, such as decreased physical stability and poor in vivo half-life. Finally, we highlight challenges and opportunities for optimizing protein binding specificity and minimizing non-specificity for future generations of therapeutics.
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12
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Zhang Q, Miyamoto A, Watanabe S, Arimori T, Sakai M, Tomisaki M, Kiuchi T, Takagi J, Watanabe N. Engineered fast-dissociating antibody fragments for multiplexed super-resolution microscopy. CELL REPORTS METHODS 2022; 2:100301. [PMID: 36313806 PMCID: PMC9606137 DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2022.100301] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2022] [Revised: 07/07/2022] [Accepted: 08/31/2022] [Indexed: 05/22/2023]
Abstract
Image reconstruction by integrating exchangeable single-molecule localization (IRIS) achieves multiplexed super-resolution imaging by high-density labeling with fast exchangeable fluorescent probes. However, previous methods to develop probes for individual targets required a great amount of time and effort. Here, we introduce a method for generating recombinant IRIS probes with a new mutagenesis strategy that can be widely applied to existing antibody sequences. Several conserved tyrosine residues at the base of complementarity-determining regions were identified as candidate sites for site-directed mutagenesis. With a high probability, mutations at candidate sites accelerated the off rate of recombinant antibody-based probes without compromising specific binding. We were able to develop IRIS probes from five monoclonal antibodies and three single-domain antibodies. We demonstrate multiplexed localization of endogenous proteins in primary neurons that visualizes small synaptic connections with high binding density. It is now practically feasible to generate fast-dissociating fluorescent probes for multitarget super-resolution imaging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qianli Zhang
- Laboratory of Single-Molecule Cell Biology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
| | - Akitoshi Miyamoto
- Laboratory of Single-Molecule Cell Biology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
| | - Shin Watanabe
- Laboratory of Single-Molecule Cell Biology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
| | - Takao Arimori
- Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
| | - Masanori Sakai
- Kyoto University Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto 606-8317, Japan
| | - Madoka Tomisaki
- Laboratory of Single-Molecule Cell Biology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
| | - Tai Kiuchi
- Department of Pharmacology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
| | - Junichi Takagi
- Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
| | - Naoki Watanabe
- Laboratory of Single-Molecule Cell Biology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
- Department of Pharmacology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
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13
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Understanding and Modulating Antibody Fine Specificity: Lessons from Combinatorial Biology. Antibodies (Basel) 2022; 11:antib11030048. [PMID: 35892708 PMCID: PMC9326607 DOI: 10.3390/antib11030048] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2022] [Revised: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 07/11/2022] [Indexed: 02/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Combinatorial biology methods such as phage and yeast display, suitable for the generation and screening of huge numbers of protein fragments and mutated variants, have been useful when dissecting the molecular details of the interactions between antibodies and their target antigens (mainly those of protein nature). The relevance of these studies goes far beyond the mere description of binding interfaces, as the information obtained has implications for the understanding of the chemistry of antibody–antigen binding reactions and the biological effects of antibodies. Further modification of the interactions through combinatorial methods to manipulate the key properties of antibodies (affinity and fine specificity) can result in the emergence of novel research tools and optimized therapeutics.
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14
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Makowski EK, Kinnunen PC, Huang J, Wu L, Smith MD, Wang T, Desai AA, Streu CN, Zhang Y, Zupancic JM, Schardt JS, Linderman JJ, Tessier PM. Co-optimization of therapeutic antibody affinity and specificity using machine learning models that generalize to novel mutational space. Nat Commun 2022; 13:3788. [PMID: 35778381 PMCID: PMC9249733 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31457-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2022] [Accepted: 06/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Therapeutic antibody development requires selection and engineering of molecules with high affinity and other drug-like biophysical properties. Co-optimization of multiple antibody properties remains a difficult and time-consuming process that impedes drug development. Here we evaluate the use of machine learning to simplify antibody co-optimization for a clinical-stage antibody (emibetuzumab) that displays high levels of both on-target (antigen) and off-target (non-specific) binding. We mutate sites in the antibody complementarity-determining regions, sort the antibody libraries for high and low levels of affinity and non-specific binding, and deep sequence the enriched libraries. Interestingly, machine learning models trained on datasets with binary labels enable predictions of continuous metrics that are strongly correlated with antibody affinity and non-specific binding. These models illustrate strong tradeoffs between these two properties, as increases in affinity along the co-optimal (Pareto) frontier require progressive reductions in specificity. Notably, models trained with deep learning features enable prediction of novel antibody mutations that co-optimize affinity and specificity beyond what is possible for the original antibody library. These findings demonstrate the power of machine learning models to greatly expand the exploration of novel antibody sequence space and accelerate the development of highly potent, drug-like antibodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily K Makowski
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Patrick C Kinnunen
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Jie Huang
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Lina Wu
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Matthew D Smith
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Tiexin Wang
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Alec A Desai
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Craig N Streu
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemistry, Albion College, Albion, MI, 49224, USA
| | - Yulei Zhang
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Jennifer M Zupancic
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - John S Schardt
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Jennifer J Linderman
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
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15
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Gupta P, Makowski EK, Kumar S, Zhang Y, Scheer JM, Tessier PM. Antibodies with Weakly Basic Isoelectric Points Minimize Trade-offs between Formulation and Physiological Colloidal Properties. Mol Pharm 2022; 19:775-787. [PMID: 35108018 PMCID: PMC9350878 DOI: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.1c00373] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
The widespread interest in antibody therapeutics has led to much focus on identifying antibody candidates with favorable developability properties. In particular, there is broad interest in identifying antibody candidates with highly repulsive self-interactions in standard formulations (e.g., low ionic strength buffers at pH 5-6) for high solubility and low viscosity. Likewise, there is also broad interest in identifying antibody candidates with low levels of non-specific interactions in physiological solution conditions (PBS, pH 7.4) to promote favorable pharmacokinetic properties. To what extent antibodies that possess both highly repulsive self-interactions in standard formulations and weak non-specific interactions in physiological solution conditions can be systematically identified remains unclear and is a potential impediment to successful therapeutic drug development. Here, we evaluate these two properties for 42 IgG1 variants based on the variable fragments (Fvs) from four clinical-stage antibodies and complementarity-determining regions from 10 clinical-stage antibodies. Interestingly, we find that antibodies with the strongest repulsive self-interactions in a standard formulation (pH 6 and 10 mM histidine) display the strongest non-specific interactions in physiological solution conditions. Conversely, antibodies with the weakest non-specific interactions under physiological conditions display the least repulsive self-interactions in standard formulations. This behavior can be largely explained by the antibody isoelectric point, as highly basic antibodies that are highly positively charged under standard formulation conditions (pH 5-6) promote repulsive self-interactions that mediate high colloidal stability but also mediate strong non-specific interactions with negatively charged biomolecules at physiological pH and vice versa for antibodies with negatively charged Fv regions. Therefore, IgG1s with weakly basic isoelectric points between 8 and 8.5 and Fv isoelectric points between 7.5 and 9 typically display the best combinations of strong repulsive self-interactions and weak non-specific interactions. We expect that these findings will improve the identification and engineering of antibody candidates with drug-like biophysical properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Priyanka Gupta
- Biochemistry and Biophysics Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, United States.,Biotherapeutics Molecule Discovery Department, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877, United States
| | - Emily K Makowski
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States
| | - Sandeep Kumar
- Biotherapeutics Molecule Discovery Department, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877, United States
| | - Yulei Zhang
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States
| | - Justin M Scheer
- Biotherapeutics Molecule Discovery Department, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877, United States.,Janssen R&D, South San Francisco, California 94080, United States
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Biochemistry and Biophysics Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, United States.,Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States.,Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States
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16
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Assessment of Therapeutic Antibody Developability by Combinations of In Vitro and In Silico Methods. METHODS IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (CLIFTON, N.J.) 2022; 2313:57-113. [PMID: 34478132 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1450-1_4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Although antibodies have become the fastest-growing class of therapeutics on the market, it is still challenging to develop them for therapeutic applications, which often require these molecules to withstand stresses that are not present in vivo. We define developability as the likelihood of an antibody candidate with suitable functionality to be developed into a manufacturable, stable, safe, and effective drug that can be formulated to high concentrations while retaining a long shelf life. The implementation of reliable developability assessments from the early stages of antibody discovery enables flagging and deselection of potentially problematic candidates, while focussing available resources on the development of the most promising ones. Currently, however, thorough developability assessment requires multiple in vitro assays, which makes it labor intensive and time consuming to implement at early stages. Furthermore, accurate in vitro analysis at the early stage is compromised by the high number of potential candidates that are often prepared at low quantities and purity. Recent improvements in the performance of computational predictors of developability potential are beginning to change this scenario. Many computational methods only require the knowledge of the amino acid sequences and can be used to identify possible developability issues or to rank available candidates according to a range of biophysical properties. Here, we describe how the implementation of in silico tools into antibody discovery pipelines is increasingly offering time- and cost-effective alternatives to in vitro experimental screening, thus streamlining the drug development process. We discuss in particular the biophysical and biochemical properties that underpin developability potential and their trade-offs, review various in vitro assays to measure such properties or parameters that are predictive of developability, and give an overview of the growing number of in silico tools available to predict properties important for antibody development, including the CamSol method developed in our laboratory.
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17
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Teixeira AAR, D'Angelo S, Erasmus MF, Leal-Lopes C, Ferrara F, Spector LP, Naranjo L, Molina E, Max T, DeAguero A, Perea K, Stewart S, Buonpane RA, Nastri HG, Bradbury ARM. Simultaneous affinity maturation and developability enhancement using natural liability-free CDRs. MAbs 2022; 14:2115200. [PMID: 36068722 PMCID: PMC9467613 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2022.2115200] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Affinity maturation is often a necessary step for the development of potent therapeutic molecules. Many different diversification strategies have been used for antibody affinity maturation, including error-prone PCR, chain shuffling, and targeted complementary-determining region (CDR) mutation. Although effective, they can negatively impact antibody stability or alter epitope recognition. Moreover, they do not address the presence of sequence liabilities, such as glycosylation, asparagine deamidation, aspartate isomerization, aggregation motifs, and others. Such liabilities, if present or inadvertently introduced, can potentially create the need for new rounds of engineering, or even abolish the value of the antibody as a therapeutic molecule. Here, we demonstrate a sequence agnostic method to improve antibody affinities, while simultaneously eliminating sequence liabilities and retaining the same epitope binding as the parental antibody. This was carried out using a defined collection of natural CDRs as the diversity source, purged of sequence liabilities, and matched to the antibody germline gene family. These CDRs were inserted into the lead molecule in one or two sites at a time (LCDR1-2, LCDR3, HCDR1-2) while retaining the HCDR3 and framework regions unchanged. The final analysis of 92 clones revealed 81 unique variants, with each of 24 tested variants having the same epitope specificity as the parental molecule. Of these, the average affinity improved by over 100 times (to 96 pM), and the best affinity improvement was 231-fold (to 32 pM).
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18
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Cunningham O, Scott M, Zhou ZS, Finlay WJJ. Polyreactivity and polyspecificity in therapeutic antibody development: risk factors for failure in preclinical and clinical development campaigns. MAbs 2021; 13:1999195. [PMID: 34780320 PMCID: PMC8726659 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2021.1999195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Antibody-based drugs, which now represent the dominant biologic therapeutic modality, are used to modulate disparate signaling pathways across diverse disease indications. One fundamental premise that has driven this therapeutic antibody revolution is the belief that each monoclonal antibody exhibits exquisitely specific binding to a single-drug target. Herein, we review emerging evidence in antibody off-target binding and relate current key findings to the risk of failure in therapeutic development. We further summarize the current state of understanding of structural mechanisms underpining the different phenomena that may drive polyreactivity and polyspecificity, and highlight current thinking on how de-risking studies may be best implemented in the screening triage. We conclude with a summary of what we believe to be key observations in the field to date, and a call for the wider antibody research community to work together to build the tools needed to maximize our understanding in this nascent area.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Martin Scott
- Department of Biopharm Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline Research & Development, Hertfordshire, UK
| | - Zhaohui Sunny Zhou
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Barnett Institute for Chemical and Biological Analysis, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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19
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Ma H, Cassedy A, Ó'Fágáin C, O'Kennedy R. Generation, selection and modification of anti-cardiac troponin I antibodies with high specificity and affinity. J Immunol Methods 2021; 500:113183. [PMID: 34774542 DOI: 10.1016/j.jim.2021.113183] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2021] [Revised: 10/27/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Current diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction involves quantification of circulating cTn levels. This work endeavoured to generate and enhance recombinant antibody fragments targeting various epitopes on the N- and C-terminals of the cTnI molecule, thereby facilitating highly sensitive detection of the troponin molecule. From this approach, two anti-cTnI scFv antibodies were successfully selected using either phage display or structural reformatting of full length anti-cTnI IgG. Their antibody binding affinity was further optimised via chain shuffling and/or site directed mutagenesis, resulting in scFv with heightened sensitivity when compared to the wild-type scFv. If used in conjunction with existing anti-mid fragment cTnI antibodies, these N- and C- terminal-targeting scFvs show high potential for the enhancement of current cTnI detection assays by limiting the effects from cTnI degradation or troponin complex formation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Ma
- School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, D09 V2O9, Ireland
| | - Arabelle Cassedy
- School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, D09 V2O9, Ireland
| | - Ciarán Ó'Fágáin
- School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, D09 V2O9, Ireland
| | - Richard O'Kennedy
- School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, D09 V2O9, Ireland; Qatar Foundation, Research, Development and Innovation, and Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Education City, Doha, Qatar.
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20
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Anumukonda K, Francis M, Currie P, Tulenko F, Hsu E. Heavy chain-only antibody genes in fish evolved to generate unique CDR3 repertoire. Eur J Immunol 2021; 52:247-260. [PMID: 34708869 DOI: 10.1002/eji.202149588] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/18/2021] [Revised: 10/08/2021] [Accepted: 10/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
In addition to conventional immunoglobulin, camelids and cartilaginous fish express a special class of antibody that consists only of heavy (H) chain (HCAbs). In the holocephalan elephantfish, there are two HCAb classes, one of which has evolved surprising features. The H-chain genes in cartilaginous fish are organized as 20-200 minigenes, or clusters, each consisting of VH, 1-3 DH, JH gene segments with one set of constant region exons. We report that HHC2 (holocephalan H-chain antibody 2) evolved from IgM H-chain clusters, but its DH gene segments have diverged considerably. The three DH in HHC2 clusters are A-rich, so that one to three potential reading frames for each DH encode lysine and arginine. All three are incorporated into the rearranged VDJ, ensuring that the ligand-binding site carries multiple basic residues, as cDNA sequences demonstrate. The electropositive character in HHC2 CDR3 is accompanied by a paucity of aromatic amino acids, the latter feature at variance to the established, interactive role of tyrosine not only in ligand-binding but generally at interfaces of protein complexes. The selection for these divergent HHC2 features challenges currently accepted ideas on what determines antibody reactivity and molecular recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kamala Anumukonda
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY, 11203, USA
| | - Malcolm Francis
- National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand
| | - Peter Currie
- Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia
| | - Frank Tulenko
- Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia
| | - Ellen Hsu
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY, 11203, USA
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21
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Xu C, He D, Zu Y, Hong S, Hao J, Li J. Microcystin-LR heterologous genetically engineered antibody recombinant and its binding activity improvement and application in immunoassay. JOURNAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIALS 2021; 406:124596. [PMID: 33307449 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/27/2020] [Revised: 11/12/2020] [Accepted: 11/13/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Microcystin-LR (MC-LR) is a high-toxic biohazard that pollutes ecological environment and agroproducts. In this study, a newly recombined genetically engineered antibody (AVHH-MVH) with higher thermal stability and binding activity was designed by chain shuffling and based on our previously obtained anti-MC-LR scFv and nanobody. Based on AVHH-MVH template, a capacity of 8.99 × 105 CFU/mL of phage display AVHH-MVH mutagenesis library was constructed by site-directed mutagenesis in MVH-CDR3 region, and then used for ultrasensitive mutants screening. Afterwards, a total of five positive AVHH-MVH mutants were isolated from the mutagenesis library, and their binding activity was higher than AVHH-MVH for MC-LR. The AVHH-MVH mutant 3 was cloned into pET-25b vector for soluble expression, and the concentration of target protein expressed in culture system was 43.5 mg/L. An indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (IC-ELISA) was established based on purified AVHH-MVH mutant 3 protein, and it showed ultrasensitive binding activity for MC-LR with the detection limit of 0.0075 μg/L, which was far below the maximum residue limit standard of 1.0 μg/L in drinking water proposed by World Health Organization. The established IC-ELISA shows good accuracy, repeatability, stability and applicability for MC-LR spiked samples, and it is promising for MC-LR ultrasensitive monitoring.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chongxin Xu
- Laboratory for Food Quality and Safety-State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Ministry of Science and Technology, Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China; College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China.
| | - Dan He
- Laboratory for Food Quality and Safety-State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Ministry of Science and Technology, Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China
| | - Yao Zu
- College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Sujuan Hong
- College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Jia Hao
- Laboratory for Food Quality and Safety-State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Ministry of Science and Technology, Institute of Food Safety and Nutrition, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China; College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210023, China
| | - Jianhong Li
- College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China.
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22
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Desai AA, Smith MD, Zhang Y, Makowski EK, Gerson JE, Ionescu E, Starr CG, Zupancic JM, Moore SJ, Sutter AB, Ivanova MI, Murphy GG, Paulson HL, Tessier PM. Rational affinity maturation of anti-amyloid antibodies with high conformational and sequence specificity. J Biol Chem 2021; 296:100508. [PMID: 33675750 PMCID: PMC8081927 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbc.2021.100508] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2020] [Revised: 02/05/2021] [Accepted: 03/02/2021] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
The aggregation of amyloidogenic polypeptides is strongly linked to several neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Conformational antibodies that selectively recognize protein aggregates are leading therapeutic agents for selectively neutralizing toxic aggregates, diagnostic and imaging agents for detecting disease, and biomedical reagents for elucidating disease mechanisms. Despite their importance, it is challenging to generate high-quality conformational antibodies in a systematic and site-specific manner due to the properties of protein aggregates (hydrophobic, multivalent, and heterogeneous) and limitations of immunization (uncontrolled antigen presentation and immunodominant epitopes). Toward addressing these challenges, we have developed a systematic directed evolution procedure for affinity maturing antibodies against Alzheimer's Aβ fibrils and selecting variants with strict conformational and sequence specificity. We first designed a library based on a lead conformational antibody by sampling combinations of amino acids in the antigen-binding site predicted to mediate high antibody specificity. Next, we displayed this library on the surface of yeast, sorted it against Aβ42 aggregates, and identified promising clones using deep sequencing. The resulting antibodies displayed similar or higher affinities than clinical-stage Aβ antibodies (aducanumab and crenezumab). Moreover, the affinity-matured antibodies retained high conformational specificity for Aβ aggregates, as observed for aducanumab and unlike crenezumab. Notably, the affinity-maturated antibodies displayed extremely low levels of nonspecific interactions, as observed for crenezumab and unlike aducanumab. We expect that our systematic methods for generating antibodies with unique combinations of desirable properties will improve the generation of high-quality conformational antibodies specific for diverse types of aggregated conformers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alec A Desai
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Matthew D Smith
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Yulei Zhang
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Emily K Makowski
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Julia E Gerson
- Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Edward Ionescu
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Charles G Starr
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Jennifer M Zupancic
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Shannon J Moore
- Protein Folding Disease Initiative, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Alexandra B Sutter
- Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biophysics Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Magdalena I Ivanova
- Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biophysics Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Geoffrey G Murphy
- Protein Folding Disease Initiative, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Henry L Paulson
- Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Protein Folding Disease Initiative, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Protein Folding Disease Initiative, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
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23
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Prabakaran R, Rawat P, Thangakani AM, Kumar S, Gromiha MM. Protein aggregation: in silico algorithms and applications. Biophys Rev 2021; 13:71-89. [PMID: 33747245 PMCID: PMC7930180 DOI: 10.1007/s12551-021-00778-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2020] [Accepted: 01/01/2021] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Protein aggregation is a topic of immense interest to the scientific community due to its role in several neurodegenerative diseases/disorders and industrial importance. Several in silico techniques, tools, and algorithms have been developed to predict aggregation in proteins and understand the aggregation mechanisms. This review attempts to provide an essence of the vast developments in in silico approaches, resources available, and future perspectives. It reviews aggregation-related databases, mechanistic models (aggregation-prone region and aggregation propensity prediction), kinetic models (aggregation rate prediction), and molecular dynamics studies related to aggregation. With a multitude of prediction models related to aggregation already available to the scientific community, the field of protein aggregation is rapidly maturing to tackle new applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- R. Prabakaran
- Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
| | - Puneet Rawat
- Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
| | - A. Mary Thangakani
- Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
| | - Sandeep Kumar
- Biotherapeutics Discovery, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceutical Inc., Ridgefield, CT USA
| | - M. Michael Gromiha
- Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu India
- School of Computing, Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa Japan
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24
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Azevedo Reis Teixeira A, Erasmus MF, D’Angelo S, Naranjo L, Ferrara F, Leal-Lopes C, Durrant O, Galmiche C, Morelli A, Scott-Tucker A, Bradbury ARM. Drug-like antibodies with high affinity, diversity and developability directly from next-generation antibody libraries. MAbs 2021; 13:1980942. [PMID: 34850665 PMCID: PMC8654478 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2021.1980942] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2021] [Revised: 09/09/2021] [Accepted: 09/10/2021] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Therapeutic antibodies must have "drug-like" properties. These include high affinity and specificity for the intended target, biological activity, and additional characteristics now known as "developability properties": long-term stability and resistance to aggregation when in solution, thermodynamic stability to prevent unfolding, high expression yields to facilitate manufacturing, low self-interaction, among others. Sequence-based liabilities may affect one or more of these characteristics. Improving the stability and developability of a lead antibody is typically achieved by modifying its sequence, a time-consuming process that often results in reduced affinity. Here we present a new antibody library format that yields high-affinity binders with drug-like developability properties directly from initial selections, reducing the need for further engineering or affinity maturation. The innovative semi-synthetic design involves grafting natural complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) from human antibodies into scaffolds based on well-behaved clinical antibodies. HCDR3s were amplified directly from B cells, while the remaining CDRs, from which all sequence liabilities had been purged, were replicated from a large next-generation sequencing dataset. By combining two in vitro display techniques, phage and yeast display, we were able to routinely recover a large number of unique, highly developable antibodies against clinically relevant targets with affinities in the subnanomolar to low nanomolar range. We anticipate that the designs and approaches presented here will accelerate the drug development process by reducing the failure rate of leads due to poor antibody affinities and developability.Abbreviations: AC-SINS: affinity-capture self-interaction nanoparticle spectroscopy; CDR: complementarity-determining region; CQA: critical quality attribute; ELISA: enzyme-linked immunoassay; FACS: fluorescence-activated cell sorting; Fv: fragment variable; GM-CSF: granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor; HCDR3: heavy chain CDR3; IFN2a: interferon α-2; IL6: interleukin-6; MACS: magnetic-activated cell sorting; NGS: next generation sequencing; PCR: polymerase chain reaction; SEC: size-exclusion chromatography; SPR: surface plasmon resonance; TGFβ-R2: transforming growth factor β-R2; VH: variable heavy; VK: variable kappa; VL: variable light; Vl: variable lambda.
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25
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Zhang F, Yu L, Zhang W, Liu L, Wang C. A minireview on the perturbation effects of polar groups to direct nanoscale hydrophobic interaction and amphiphilic peptide assembly. RSC Adv 2021; 11:28667-28673. [PMID: 35478591 PMCID: PMC9038178 DOI: 10.1039/d1ra05463e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2021] [Accepted: 08/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Hydrophobic interaction provides the essential driving force for creating diverse native and artificial supramolecular architectures. Accumulating evidence leads to a hypothesis that the hydrophobicity of a nonpolar patch of a molecule is non-additive and susceptible to the chemical context of a judicious polar patch. However, the quantification of the hydrophobic interaction at the nanoscale remains a central challenge to validate the hypothesis. In this review, we aim to outline the recent efforts made to determine the hydrophobic interaction at a nanoscopic length scale. The advances achieved in the understanding of proximal polar groups perturbing the magnitude of hydrophobic interaction generated by the nonpolar patch are introduced. We will also discuss the influence of chemical heterogeneity on the modulation of amphiphilic peptide/protein assembly and molecular recognition. Hydrophobic interaction provides the essential driving force for creating diverse native and artificial supramolecular architectures.![]()
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Affiliation(s)
- Feiyi Zhang
- Institute for Advanced Materials, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 212013, China
| | - Lanlan Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, School of Basic Medicine Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, China
| | - Wenbo Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, School of Basic Medicine Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, China
| | - Lei Liu
- Institute for Advanced Materials, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 212013, China
| | - Chenxuan Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, School of Basic Medicine Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, China
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26
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Makowski EK, Wu L, Gupta P, Tessier PM. Discovery-stage identification of drug-like antibodies using emerging experimental and computational methods. MAbs 2021; 13:1895540. [PMID: 34313532 PMCID: PMC8346245 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2021.1895540] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2020] [Revised: 02/05/2021] [Accepted: 02/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
There is intense and widespread interest in developing monoclonal antibodies as therapeutic agents to treat diverse human disorders. During early-stage antibody discovery, hundreds to thousands of lead candidates are identified, and those that lack optimal physical and chemical properties must be deselected as early as possible to avoid problems later in drug development. It is particularly challenging to characterize such properties for large numbers of candidates with the low antibody quantities, concentrations, and purities that are available at the discovery stage, and to predict concentrated antibody properties (e.g., solubility, viscosity) required for efficient formulation, delivery, and efficacy. Here we review key recent advances in developing and implementing high-throughput methods for identifying antibodies with desirable in vitro and in vivo properties, including favorable antibody stability, specificity, solubility, pharmacokinetics, and immunogenicity profiles, that together encompass overall drug developability. In particular, we highlight impressive recent progress in developing computational methods for improving rational antibody design and prediction of drug-like behaviors that hold great promise for reducing the amount of required experimentation. We also discuss outstanding challenges that will need to be addressed in the future to fully realize the great potential of using such analysis for minimizing development times and improving the success rate of antibody candidates in the clinic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily K. Makowski
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Lina Wu
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering
| | - Priyanka Gupta
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA
- Biotherapeutics Discovery Department, Boehringer Ingelheim, Ridgefield, CT, USA
| | - Peter M. Tessier
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- Department of Chemical Engineering
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
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27
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Domnowski M, Lo Presti K, Binder J, Reindl J, Lehmann L, Kummer F, Wolber M, Satzger M, Dehling M, Jaehrling J, Frieß W. Generation of mAb Variants with Less Attractive Self-Interaction but Preserved Target Binding by Well-Directed Mutation. Mol Pharm 2020; 18:236-245. [PMID: 33331157 DOI: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.0c00848] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Strongly attractive self-interaction of therapeutic protein candidates can impose challenges for manufacturing, filling, stability, and administration due to elevated viscosity or aggregation propensity. Suitable formulations can mitigate these issues to a certain extent. Understanding the self-interaction mechanism on a molecular basis and rational protein engineering provides a more fundamental approach, and it can save costs and efforts as well as alleviate risks at later stages of development. In this study, we used computational methods for the identification of aggregation-prone regions in a mAb and generated mutants based on these findings. We applied hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry to identify distinct self-interaction hot spots. Ultimately, we generated mAb variants based on a combination of both approaches and identified mutants with low attractive self-interaction propensity, minimal off-target binding, and even improved target binding. Our data show that the introduction of arginine in spatial proximity to hydrophobic patches is highly beneficial on all these levels. For our mAb, variants that contain more than one aspartate residue flanking to the hydrophobic HCDR3 show decreased attractive self-interaction at unaffected off-target and target binding. The combined engineering strategy described here underlines the high potential of understanding self-interaction in the early stages of development to predict and reduce the risk of failure in subsequent development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Domnowski
- Department of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Ludwig Maximilians-Universitaet, Munich 81377, Germany.,MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Ken Lo Presti
- Department of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Ludwig Maximilians-Universitaet, Munich 81377, Germany
| | - Jonas Binder
- Department of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Ludwig Maximilians-Universitaet, Munich 81377, Germany
| | - Josef Reindl
- MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Lucille Lehmann
- MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Felix Kummer
- MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Meike Wolber
- MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Marion Satzger
- MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Marco Dehling
- MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Jan Jaehrling
- MorphoSys AG, Department of Protein Sciences (Research), Planegg 82152, Germany
| | - Wolfgang Frieß
- Department of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics, Ludwig Maximilians-Universitaet, Munich 81377, Germany
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28
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Antibody Fragments as Tools for Elucidating Structure-Toxicity Relationships and for Diagnostic/Therapeutic Targeting of Neurotoxic Amyloid Oligomers. Int J Mol Sci 2020; 21:ijms21238920. [PMID: 33255488 PMCID: PMC7727795 DOI: 10.3390/ijms21238920] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2020] [Revised: 10/01/2020] [Accepted: 10/01/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
The accumulation of amyloid protein aggregates in tissues is the basis for the onset of diseases known as amyloidoses. Intriguingly, many amyloidoses impact the central nervous system (CNS) and usually are devastating diseases. It is increasingly apparent that neurotoxic soluble oligomers formed by amyloidogenic proteins are the primary molecular drivers of these diseases, making them lucrative diagnostic and therapeutic targets. One promising diagnostic/therapeutic strategy has been the development of antibody fragments against amyloid oligomers. Antibody fragments, such as fragment antigen-binding (Fab), scFv (single chain variable fragments), and VHH (heavy chain variable domain or single-domain antibodies) are an alternative to full-length IgGs as diagnostics and therapeutics for a variety of diseases, mainly because of their increased tissue penetration (lower MW compared to IgG), decreased inflammatory potential (lack of Fc domain), and facile production (low structural complexity). Furthermore, through the use of in vitro-based ligand selection, it has been possible to identify antibody fragments presenting marked conformational selectivity. In this review, we summarize significant reports on antibody fragments selective for oligomers associated with prevalent CNS amyloidoses. We discuss promising results obtained using antibody fragments as both diagnostic and therapeutic agents against these diseases. In addition, the use of antibody fragments, particularly scFv and VHH, in the isolation of unique oligomeric assemblies is discussed as a strategy to unravel conformational moieties responsible for neurotoxicity. We envision that advances in this field may lead to the development of novel oligomer-selective antibody fragments with superior selectivity and, hopefully, good clinical outcomes.
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29
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Lou W, Stimple SD, Desai AA, Makowski EK, Kalyoncu S, Mogensen JE, Spang LT, Asgreen DJ, Staby A, Duus K, Amstrup J, Zhang Y, Tessier PM. Directed evolution of conformation-specific antibodies for sensitive detection of polypeptide aggregates in therapeutic drug formulations. Biotechnol Bioeng 2020; 118:797-808. [PMID: 33095442 DOI: 10.1002/bit.27610] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2020] [Revised: 10/15/2020] [Accepted: 10/19/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Biologics such as peptides and proteins possess a number of attractive attributes that make them particularly valuable as therapeutics, including their high activity, high specificity, and low toxicity. However, one of the key challenges associated with this class of drugs is their propensity to aggregate. Given the safety and immunogenicity concerns related to polypeptide aggregates, it is particularly important to sensitively detect aggregates in therapeutic drug formulations as part of the quality control process. Here, we report the development of conformation-specific antibodies that recognize polypeptide aggregates composed of a GLP-1 receptor agonist (liraglutide) and their integration into a sensitive immunoassay for detecting liraglutide amyloid fibrils. We sorted single-chain antibody libraries against liraglutide fibrils using yeast surface display and magnetic-activated cell sorting, and identified several antibodies with high conformational specificity. Interestingly, these antibodies cross-react with amyloid fibrils formed by several other polypeptides, revealing that they recognize molecular features common to different types of fibrils. Moreover, we find that our immunoassay using these antibodies is >50-fold more sensitive than the conventional method for detecting liraglutide aggregation (Thioflavin T fluorescence). We expect that our systematic approach for generating a sensitive, aggregate-specific immunoassay can be readily extended to other biologics to improve the quality and safety of formulated drug products.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenjia Lou
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.,Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Samuel D Stimple
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.,Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Alec A Desai
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Emily K Makowski
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Sibel Kalyoncu
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Yulei Zhang
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.,Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.,Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
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30
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Sawant MS, Streu CN, Wu L, Tessier PM. Toward Drug-Like Multispecific Antibodies by Design. Int J Mol Sci 2020; 21:E7496. [PMID: 33053650 PMCID: PMC7589779 DOI: 10.3390/ijms21207496] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2020] [Revised: 10/02/2020] [Accepted: 10/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The success of antibody therapeutics is strongly influenced by their multifunctional nature that couples antigen recognition mediated by their variable regions with effector functions and half-life extension mediated by a subset of their constant regions. Nevertheless, the monospecific IgG format is not optimal for many therapeutic applications, and this has led to the design of a vast number of unique multispecific antibody formats that enable targeting of multiple antigens or multiple epitopes on the same antigen. Despite the diversity of these formats, a common challenge in generating multispecific antibodies is that they display suboptimal physical and chemical properties relative to conventional IgGs and are more difficult to develop into therapeutics. Here we review advances in the design and engineering of multispecific antibodies with drug-like properties, including favorable stability, solubility, viscosity, specificity and pharmacokinetic properties. We also highlight emerging experimental and computational methods for improving the next generation of multispecific antibodies, as well as their constituent antibody fragments, with natural IgG-like properties. Finally, we identify several outstanding challenges that need to be addressed to increase the success of multispecific antibodies in the clinic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manali S. Sawant
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; (M.S.S.); (C.N.S.)
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA;
| | - Craig N. Streu
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; (M.S.S.); (C.N.S.)
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA;
- Department of Chemistry, Albion College, Albion, MI 49224, USA
| | - Lina Wu
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA;
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Peter M. Tessier
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; (M.S.S.); (C.N.S.)
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA;
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
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31
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Zhang Y, Wu L, Gupta P, Desai AA, Smith MD, Rabia LA, Ludwig SD, Tessier PM. Physicochemical Rules for Identifying Monoclonal Antibodies with Drug-like Specificity. Mol Pharm 2020; 17:2555-2569. [PMID: 32453957 PMCID: PMC7936472 DOI: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.0c00257] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The ability of antibodies to recognize their target antigens with high specificity is fundamental to their natural function. Nevertheless, therapeutic antibodies display variable and difficult-to-predict levels of nonspecific and self-interactions that can lead to various drug development challenges, including antibody aggregation, abnormally high viscosity, and rapid antibody clearance. Here we report a method for predicting the overall specificity of antibodies in terms of their relative risk for displaying high levels of nonspecific or self-interactions at physiological conditions. We find that individual and combined sets of chemical rules that limit the maximum and minimum numbers of certain solvent-exposed amino acids in antibody variable regions are strong predictors of specificity for large panels of preclinical and clinical-stage antibodies. We also demonstrate how the chemical rules can be used to identify sites that mediate nonspecific interactions in suboptimal antibodies and guide the design of targeted sublibraries that yield variants with high antibody specificity. These findings can be readily used to improve the selection and engineering of antibodies with drug-like specificity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yulei Zhang
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Lina Wu
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Priyanka Gupta
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA
- Biotherapeutics Discovery Department, Boehringer Ingelheim, Ridgefield, CT 06877
| | - Alec A. Desai
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Matthew D. Smith
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Lilia A. Rabia
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Troy, NY 12180, USA
| | - Seth D. Ludwig
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Troy, NY 12180, USA
| | - Peter M. Tessier
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Troy, NY 12180, USA
- Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA
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32
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Apgar JR, Tam ASP, Sorm R, Moesta S, King AC, Yang H, Kelleher K, Murphy D, D’Antona AM, Yan G, Zhong X, Rodriguez L, Ma W, Ferguson DE, Carven GJ, Bennett EM, Lin L. Modeling and mitigation of high-concentration antibody viscosity through structure-based computer-aided protein design. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0232713. [PMID: 32379792 PMCID: PMC7205207 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232713] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2019] [Accepted: 04/20/2020] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
For an antibody to be a successful therapeutic many competing factors require optimization, including binding affinity, biophysical characteristics, and immunogenicity risk. Additional constraints may arise from the need to formulate antibodies at high concentrations (>150 mg/ml) to enable subcutaneous dosing with reasonable volume (ideally <1.0 mL). Unfortunately, antibodies at high concentrations may exhibit high viscosities that place impractical constraints (such as multiple injections or large needle diameters) on delivery and impede efficient manufacturing. Here we describe the optimization of an anti-PDGF-BB antibody to reduce viscosity, enabling an increase in the formulated concentration from 80 mg/ml to greater than 160 mg/ml, while maintaining the binding affinity. We performed two rounds of structure guided rational design to optimize the surface electrostatic properties. Analysis of this set demonstrated that a net-positive charge change, and disruption of negative charge patches were associated with decreased viscosity, but the effect was greatly dependent on the local surface environment. Our work here provides a comprehensive study exploring a wide sampling of charge-changes in the Fv and CDR regions along with targeting multiple negative charge patches. In total, we generated viscosity measurements for 40 unique antibody variants with full sequence information which provides a significantly larger and more complete dataset than has previously been reported.
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Affiliation(s)
- James R. Apgar
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Amy S. P. Tam
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Rhady Sorm
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Sybille Moesta
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Amy C. King
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Han Yang
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Kerry Kelleher
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Denise Murphy
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Aaron M. D’Antona
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Guoying Yan
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Xiaotian Zhong
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Linette Rodriguez
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Weijun Ma
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Darren E. Ferguson
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Gregory J. Carven
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Eric M. Bennett
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Laura Lin
- BioMedicine Design, Pfizer Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
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33
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Ferreira GM, Shahfar H, Sathish HA, Remmele RL, Roberts CJ. Identifying Key Residues That Drive Strong Electrostatic Attractions between Therapeutic Antibodies. J Phys Chem B 2019; 123:10642-10653. [PMID: 31739660 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b08355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Attractive electrostatic protein-protein interactions (PPI) necessarily involve identifying oppositely charged regions of the protein surface that interact favorably. This cannot be done reliably if one only considers a single protein in isolation unless there are obvious charge "patches" that result in extreme molecular dipoles. Prior work [ J. Pharm. Sci. 2019 , 108 , 120 - 132 ] identified three monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) that displayed experimental behavior ranging from net repulsive to strongly attractive electrostatic interactions. The present work provides a systematic computational approach for identifying the origin of diverse PPI, in terms of which sets of amino acids or individual amino acids are most influential, and determining if there are different patterns of pairwise amino acid interaction "maps" that result in different behaviors. The charge was eliminated computationally, one by one, for each charged residue in the wild-type sequences, which resulted in predicted changes in the second osmotic virial coefficient. The results highlight interaction "maps" that correspond to cases with qualitatively different net electrostatic PPI for the different MAbs and solution conditions, as well as key sets of residues that contribute to strongly attractive PPI. A more computationally efficient method is also proposed to identify key amino acids based on Mayer-weighted interaction energies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Glenn M Ferreira
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering , University of Delaware , Newark , Delaware 19716 , United States
| | - Hassan Shahfar
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering , University of Delaware , Newark , Delaware 19716 , United States.,Department of Physics and Astronomy , University of Delaware , Newark , Delaware 19716 , United States
| | | | | | - Christopher J Roberts
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering , University of Delaware , Newark , Delaware 19716 , United States
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34
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Karadag M, Arslan M, Kaleli NE, Kalyoncu S. Physicochemical determinants of antibody-protein interactions. ADVANCES IN PROTEIN CHEMISTRY AND STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY 2019; 121:85-114. [PMID: 32312427 DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2019.08.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Antibodies are specialized proteins generated by immune system for high specificity and affinity binding to target antigens. Because of their essential roles in immune system, antibodies have been successfully developed and engineered as biopharmaceuticals for treatment of various diseases. Analysis of antibody-protein interactions is always required to get detailed information on effectivity of such antibody-based therapeutics. Although physicochemical rules cannot be generalized for every antibody-protein interaction, there are some features which should be taken into account during antibody development and engineering efforts. In this chapter, physicochemical analysis of antibody paratope-protein epitope interactions will be discussed to highlight important characteristics. First, paratope and non-paratope regions of antibodies will be described and important roles of these regions on binding and biophysical features of antibodies will be discussed. Then, general features of epitope regions of protein antigens will be introduced along with several computational/experimental tools to identify them. Lastly, a rising star of antibody biopharmaceuticals, nanobodies, will be described to show importance of next-generation antibody fragment based biopharmaceuticals in drug development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Murat Karadag
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, İzmir, Turkey
| | - Merve Arslan
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, İzmir, Turkey
| | - Nazli Eda Kaleli
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, İzmir, Turkey
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Biswal JK, Subramaniam S, Ranjan R, VanderWaal K, Sanyal A, Pattnaik B, Singh RK. Differential antibody responses to the major antigenic sites of FMD virus serotype O after primo-vaccination, multiply-vaccination and after natural exposure. INFECTION GENETICS AND EVOLUTION 2019; 78:104105. [PMID: 31706082 DOI: 10.1016/j.meegid.2019.104105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/15/2019] [Revised: 10/21/2019] [Accepted: 11/04/2019] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
Foot and mouth disease (FMD) virus serotype O is the predominant cause of FMD outbreaks in several regions of the world including India. Five independent neutralizing antigenic sites have been identified on the capsid surface of FMD virus serotype O. The relative importance of these neutralizing sites in eliciting antibody responses in the polyclonal sera collected from un-infected vaccinated (both primo and multiply-vaccinated) and naturally infected cattle populations were determined through a combination of reverse genetics and serology. The known critical amino acid residues present on the five antigenic sites of FMD virus serotype O Indian vaccine strain O IND R2/1975 were mutated through site-directed mutagenesis. The mutant viruses were rescued in cell-culture and analyzed through virus-neutralization assays along with parent virus using the polyclonal sera collected from three groups of cattle. In the polyclonal sera from primo-vaccinated cattle, significantly higher level of antibodies were directed towards antigenic site 2. In contrast, in polyclonal sera from multiply vaccinated animals, both antigenic sites 1 and 2 were equally important. In case of naturally infected animals, antibody responses were elicited against all the five antigenic sites. Although a drop in neutralization titres was observed for all the mutants, in one instance, increase in titre was noticed for a site 3 mutant. The findings from this study extend our knowledge on the antibody immunodominace following FMDV vaccination and infection, and may improve our strategies for vaccine strain selection and rational vaccine design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jitendra K Biswal
- ICAR-Directorate of Foot-and-mouth Disease, Mukteswar, 263138 Nainital, Uttarakhand, India.
| | - Saravanan Subramaniam
- ICAR-Directorate of Foot-and-mouth Disease, Mukteswar, 263138 Nainital, Uttarakhand, India
| | - Rajeev Ranjan
- ICAR-Directorate of Foot-and-mouth Disease, Mukteswar, 263138 Nainital, Uttarakhand, India
| | - Kimberly VanderWaal
- UMN, STEMMA Laboratory, Veterinary Population Medicine, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN, USA
| | - Aniket Sanyal
- ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bengaluru Campus, Hebbal, 560024 Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
| | - Brahmadev Pattnaik
- ICAR-Directorate of Foot-and-mouth Disease, Mukteswar, 263138 Nainital, Uttarakhand, India
| | - Raj Kumar Singh
- ICAR-Directorate of Foot-and-mouth Disease, Mukteswar, 263138 Nainital, Uttarakhand, India
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36
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Joshi KK, Phung W, Han G, Yin Y, Kim I, Sandoval W, Carter PJ. Elucidating heavy/light chain pairing preferences to facilitate the assembly of bispecific IgG in single cells. MAbs 2019; 11:1254-1265. [PMID: 31286843 PMCID: PMC6748609 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2019.1640549] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2019] [Revised: 06/19/2019] [Accepted: 06/29/2019] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Multiple strategies have been developed to facilitate the efficient production of bispecific IgG (BsIgG) in single host cells. For example, we previously demonstrated near quantitative (≥90%) formation of BsIgG of different species and isotypes by combining 'knob-into-hole' mutations for heavy chain heterodimerization with engineered antigen-binding fragments (Fabs) for preferential cognate heavy/light chain pairing. Surprisingly, in this study we found high yield (>65%) of BsIgG1without Fab engineering to be a common occurrence, i.e., observed for 33 of the 99 different antibody pairs evaluated. Installing charge mutations at both CH1/CL interfaces was sufficient for near quantitative yield (>90%) of BsIgG1 for most (9 of 11) antibody pairs tested with this inherent cognate chain pairing preference. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that a strong cognate pairing preference in one Fab arm can be sufficient for high BsIgG1 yield. These observed chain pairing preferences are apparently driven by variable domain sequences and can result from a few specific residues in the complementarity-determining region (CDR) L3 and H3. Transfer of these CDR residues into other antibodies increased BsIgG1 yield in most cases. Mutational analysis revealed that the disulfide bond between heavy and light chains did not affect the yield of BsIgG1. This study provides some mechanistic understanding of factors contributing to antibody heavy/light chain pairing preference and subsequently contributes to the efficient production of BsIgG in single host cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kamal Kishore Joshi
- Department of Antibody Engineering, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Wilson Phung
- Department of Microchemistry, Proteomics and Lipidomics, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Guanghui Han
- Department of Microchemistry, Proteomics and Lipidomics, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Yiyuan Yin
- Department of Antibody Engineering, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Ingrid Kim
- Department of Antibody Engineering, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Wendy Sandoval
- Department of Microchemistry, Proteomics and Lipidomics, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Paul J. Carter
- Department of Antibody Engineering, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
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37
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Lecerf M, Kanyavuz A, Lacroix-Desmazes S, Dimitrov JD. Sequence features of variable region determining physicochemical properties and polyreactivity of therapeutic antibodies. Mol Immunol 2019; 112:338-346. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molimm.2019.06.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2019] [Revised: 06/17/2019] [Accepted: 06/17/2019] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
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38
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Rabia LA, Zhang Y, Ludwig SD, Julian MC, Tessier PM. Net charge of antibody complementarity-determining regions is a key predictor of specificity. Protein Eng Des Sel 2019; 31:409-418. [PMID: 30770934 DOI: 10.1093/protein/gzz002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2018] [Revised: 12/23/2018] [Accepted: 01/18/2019] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Specificity is one of the most important and complex properties that is central to both natural antibody function and therapeutic antibody efficacy. However, it has proven extremely challenging to define robust guidelines for predicting antibody specificity. Here we evaluated the physicochemical determinants of antibody specificity for multiple panels of antibodies, including >100 clinical-stage antibodies. Surprisingly, we find that the theoretical net charge of the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) is a strong predictor of antibody specificity. Antibodies with positively charged CDRs have a much higher risk of low specificity than antibodies with negatively charged CDRs. Moreover, the charge of the entire set of six CDRs is a much better predictor of antibody specificity than the charge of individual CDRs, variable domains (VH or VL) or the entire variable fragment (Fv). The best indicators of antibody specificity in terms of CDR amino acid composition are reduced levels of arginine and lysine and increased levels of aspartic and glutamic acid. Interestingly, clinical-stage antibodies with negatively charged CDRs also have a lower risk for poor biophysical properties in general, including a reduced risk for high levels of self-association. These findings provide powerful guidelines for predicting antibody specificity and for identifying safe and potent antibody therapeutics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lilia A Rabia
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA.,Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.,Department of Chemical Engineering
| | | | - Seth D Ludwig
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA
| | - Mark C Julian
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA.,Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.,Department of Chemical Engineering.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
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39
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Stimple SD, Kalyoncu S, Desai AA, Mogensen JE, Spang LT, Asgreen DJ, Staby A, Tessier PM. Sensitive detection of glucagon aggregation using amyloid fibril‐specific antibodies. Biotechnol Bioeng 2019; 116:1868-1877. [DOI: 10.1002/bit.26994] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/01/2019] [Revised: 04/03/2019] [Accepted: 04/11/2019] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Samuel D. Stimple
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces InstituteUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor MI
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces InstituteUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor MI
| | - Sibel Kalyoncu
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary StudiesRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteTroy NY
| | - Alec A. Desai
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces InstituteUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor MI
| | | | - Lotte T. Spang
- New Product Introduction, Product SupplyNovo Nordisk A/SCopenhagen Denmark
| | - Désirée J. Asgreen
- New Product Introduction, Product SupplyNovo Nordisk A/SCopenhagen Denmark
| | - Arne Staby
- CMC Development, R&DNovo Nordisk A/SCopenhagen Denmark
| | - Peter M. Tessier
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces InstituteUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor MI
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces InstituteUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor MI
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biointerfaces InstituteUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor MI
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40
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Julian MC, Rabia LA, Desai AA, Arsiwala A, Gerson JE, Paulson HL, Kane RS, Tessier PM. Nature-inspired design and evolution of anti-amyloid antibodies. J Biol Chem 2019; 294:8438-8451. [PMID: 30918024 DOI: 10.1074/jbc.ra118.004731] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/09/2018] [Revised: 03/21/2019] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Antibodies that recognize amyloidogenic aggregates with high conformational and sequence specificity are important for detecting and potentially treating a wide range of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. However, these types of antibodies are challenging to generate because of the large size, hydrophobicity, and heterogeneity of protein aggregates. To address this challenge, we developed a method for generating antibodies specific for amyloid aggregates. First, we grafted amyloidogenic peptide segments from the target polypeptide [Alzheimer's amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide] into the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) of a stable antibody scaffold. Next, we diversified the grafted and neighboring CDR sites using focused mutagenesis to sample each WT or grafted residue, as well as one to five of the most commonly occurring amino acids at each site in human antibodies. Finally, we displayed these antibody libraries on the surface of yeast cells and selected antibodies that strongly recognize Aβ-amyloid fibrils and only weakly recognize soluble Aβ. We found that this approach enables the generation of monovalent and bivalent antibodies with nanomolar affinity for Aβ fibrils. These antibodies display high conformational and sequence specificity as well as low levels of nonspecific binding and recognize a conformational epitope at the extreme N terminus of human Aβ. We expect that this systematic approach will be useful for generating antibodies with conformational and sequence specificity against a wide range of peptide and protein aggregates associated with neurodegenerative disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark C Julian
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180
| | - Lilia A Rabia
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180; Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
| | - Alec A Desai
- Department of Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
| | - Ammar Arsiwala
- School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
| | - Julia E Gerson
- Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
| | - Henry L Paulson
- Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Protein Folding Disease Initiative, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
| | - Ravi S Kane
- School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180; Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Protein Folding Disease Initiative, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
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41
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Starr CG, Tessier PM. Selecting and engineering monoclonal antibodies with drug-like specificity. Curr Opin Biotechnol 2019; 60:119-127. [PMID: 30822699 DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2019.01.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2018] [Revised: 11/16/2018] [Accepted: 01/19/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Despite the recent explosion in the use of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) as drugs, it remains a significant challenge to generate antibodies with a combination of physicochemical properties that are optimal for therapeutic applications. We argue that one of the most important and underappreciated drug-like antibody properties is high specificity - defined here as low levels of antibody non-specific and self-interactions - which is linked to low off-target binding and slow antibody clearance in vivo and high solubility and low viscosity in vitro. Here, we review the latest advances in characterizing antibody specificity and elucidating its molecular determinants as well as using these findings to improve the selection and engineering of antibodies with extremely high, drug-like specificity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charles G Starr
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
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42
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Sormanni P, Aprile FA, Vendruscolo M. Third generation antibody discovery methods: in silico rational design. Chem Soc Rev 2018; 47:9137-9157. [PMID: 30298157 DOI: 10.1039/c8cs00523k] [Citation(s) in RCA: 76] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Owing to their outstanding performances in molecular recognition, antibodies are extensively used in research and applications in molecular biology, biotechnology and medicine. Recent advances in experimental and computational methods are making it possible to complement well-established in vivo (first generation) and in vitro (second generation) methods of antibody discovery with novel in silico (third generation) approaches. Here we describe the principles of computational antibody design and review the state of the art in this field. We then present Modular, a method that implements the rational design of antibodies in a modular manner, and describe the opportunities offered by this approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pietro Sormanni
- Centre for Misfolding Diseases, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK.
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43
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Zhang M, Zheng J, Nussinov R, Ma B. Molecular Recognition between Aβ-Specific Single-Domain Antibody and Aβ Misfolded Aggregates. Antibodies (Basel) 2018; 7:E25. [PMID: 31544877 PMCID: PMC6640678 DOI: 10.3390/antib7030025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2018] [Revised: 07/06/2018] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Aβ is the toxic amyloid polypeptide responsible for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Prevention and elimination of the Aβ misfolded aggregates are the promising therapeutic strategies for the AD treatments. Gammabody, the Aβ-Specific Single-domain (VH) antibody, recognizes Aβ aggregates with high affinity and specificity and reduces their toxicities. Employing the molecular dynamics simulations, we studied diverse gammabody-Aβ recognition complexes to get insights into their structural and dynamic properties and gammabody-Aβ recognitions. Among many heterogeneous binding modes, we focused on two gammabody-Aβ recognition scenarios: recognition through Aβ β-sheet backbone and on sidechain surface. We found that the gammabody primarily uses the complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) loop with the grafted Aβ sequence to interact with the Aβ fibril, while CDR1/CDR2 loops have very little contact. The gammabody-Aβ complexes with backbone binding mode are more stable, explaining the gammabody's specificity towards the C-terminal Aβ sequence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingzhen Zhang
- Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, the University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA.
- Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
| | - Jie Zheng
- Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, the University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA.
| | - Ruth Nussinov
- Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
- Sackler Institute of Molecular Medicine, Department of Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
| | - Buyong Ma
- Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
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44
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Rabia LA, Desai AA, Jhajj HS, Tessier PM. Understanding and overcoming trade-offs between antibody affinity, specificity, stability and solubility. Biochem Eng J 2018; 137:365-374. [PMID: 30666176 DOI: 10.1016/j.bej.2018.06.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 89] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
The widespread use of monoclonal antibodies for therapeutic applications has led to intense interest in optimizing several of their natural properties (affinity, specificity, stability, solubility and effector functions) as well as introducing non-natural activities (bispecificity and cytotoxicity mediated by conjugated drugs). A common challenge during antibody optimization is that improvements in one property (e.g., affinity) can lead to deficits in other properties (e.g., stability). Here we review recent advances in understanding trade-offs between different antibody properties, including affinity, specificity, stability and solubility. We also review new approaches for co-optimizing multiple antibody properties and discuss how these methods can be used to rapidly and systematically generate antibodies for a wide range of applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lilia A Rabia
- Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Isermann Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180
| | - Alec A Desai
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Harkamal S Jhajj
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Isermann Dept. of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
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45
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Chen Z, Liu J, Chu D, Shan Y, Ma G, Zhang H, Zhang XD, Wang P, Chen Q, Deng C, Chen W, Dimitrov DS, Zhao Q. A dual-specific IGF-I/II human engineered antibody domain inhibits IGF signaling in breast cancer cells. Int J Biol Sci 2018; 14:799-806. [PMID: 29910690 PMCID: PMC6001679 DOI: 10.7150/ijbs.25928] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2018] [Accepted: 04/10/2018] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
The insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), IGF-I and IGF-II, are essential for regulating cell growth, differentiation and metastasis of a broad range of malignancies. The IGF-I/II actions are mediated through the IGF receptor type 1 (IGF-1R) and the insulin receptor (IR), which are overexpressed in multiple types of tumors. Here, we have firstly identified a human engineered antibody domain (eAd) from a phage-displayed VH library. The eAd suppressed the signal transduction of IGF-1R mediated by exogenous IGF-I or IGF-II in breast cancer cell lines through neutralizing both IGF-I and IGF-II. It also significantly inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells. Therefore, the anti-IGF-I/II eAd offers an alternative approach to target both the IGF-1R signaling pathways through the inhibition of IGF-I/II.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhizhen Chen
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Jie Liu
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Dafeng Chu
- Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Yaming Shan
- National Engineering Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine, School of Life Science, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China
| | - Guixing Ma
- Department of Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Cell Microenvironment and Disease Research, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Cell Microenvironment, SUSTech-HKU joint laboratories for matrix biology and diseases, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Hongmin Zhang
- Department of Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Cell Microenvironment and Disease Research, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Cell Microenvironment, SUSTech-HKU joint laboratories for matrix biology and diseases, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | | | - Pu Wang
- Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangdong, China
| | - Qiang Chen
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Chuxia Deng
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China
| | - Weizao Chen
- Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute-Frederick, National Institutes of Health, Maryland, USA
| | - Dimiter S Dimitrov
- Center for Antibody Therapeutics, University of Pittsburgh Medical School, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Qi Zhao
- Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China
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46
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Alam ME, Geng SB, Bender C, Ludwig SD, Linden L, Hoet R, Tessier PM. Biophysical and Sequence-Based Methods for Identifying Monovalent and Bivalent Antibodies with High Colloidal Stability. Mol Pharm 2017; 15:150-163. [PMID: 29154550 DOI: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.7b00779] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
In vitro antibody discovery and/or affinity maturation are often performed using antibody fragments (Fabs), but most monovalent Fabs are reformatted as bivalent IgGs (monoclonal antibodies, mAbs) for therapeutic applications. One problem related to reformatting antibodies is that the bivalency of mAbs can lead to increased antibody self-association and poor biophysical properties (e.g., reduced antibody solubility and increased viscosity). Therefore, it is important to identify monovalent Fabs early in the discovery and/or optimization process that will display favorable biophysical properties when reformatted as bivalent mAbs. Here we demonstrate a facile approach for evaluating Fab self-association in a multivalent assay format that is capable of identifying antibodies with low self-association and favorable colloidal properties when reformatted as bivalent mAbs. Our approach (self-interaction nanoparticle spectroscopy, SINS) involves immobilizing Fabs on gold nanoparticles in a multivalent format (multiple Fabs per nanoparticle) and evaluating their self-association behavior via shifts in the plasmon wavelength or changes in the absorbance values. Importantly, we find that SINS measurements of Fab self-association are correlated with self-interaction measurements of bivalent mAbs and are useful for identifying antibodies with favorable biophysical properties. Moreover, the significant differences in the levels of self-association detected for Fabs and mAbs with similar frameworks can be largely explained by the physicochemical properties of the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs). Comparison of the properties of the CDRs in this study relative to those of approved therapeutic antibodies reveals several key factors (net charge, fraction of charged residues, and presence of self-interaction motifs) that strongly influence antibody self-association behavior. Increased positive charge in the CDRs was observed to correlate with increased risk of high self-association for the mAbs in this study and clinical-stage antibodies. We expect that these findings will be useful for improving the development of therapeutic antibodies that are well suited for high concentration applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Magfur E Alam
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , Troy, New York 12180, United States
| | - Steven B Geng
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , Troy, New York 12180, United States
| | - Christian Bender
- Pharmaceuticals, Bayer AG , Nattermannallee 1, Cologne 50829, Germany
| | - Seth D Ludwig
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , Troy, New York 12180, United States
| | - Lars Linden
- Pharmaceuticals, Bayer AG , Aprather Weg 18A, Wuppertal 42117, Germany
| | - Rene Hoet
- Pharmaceuticals, Bayer AG , Nattermannallee 1, Cologne 50829, Germany
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Isermann Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , Troy, New York 12180, United States.,Departments of Chemical Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, Biointerfaces Institute, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States
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Tiller KE, Chowdhury R, Li T, Ludwig SD, Sen S, Maranas CD, Tessier PM. Facile Affinity Maturation of Antibody Variable Domains Using Natural Diversity Mutagenesis. Front Immunol 2017; 8:986. [PMID: 28928732 PMCID: PMC5591402 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.00986] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2017] [Accepted: 08/02/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The identification of mutations that enhance antibody affinity while maintaining high antibody specificity and stability is a time-consuming and laborious process. Here, we report an efficient methodology for systematically and rapidly enhancing the affinity of antibody variable domains while maximizing specificity and stability using novel synthetic antibody libraries. Our approach first uses computational and experimental alanine scanning mutagenesis to identify sites in the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) that are permissive to mutagenesis while maintaining antigen binding. Next, we mutagenize the most permissive CDR positions using degenerate codons to encode wild-type residues and a small number of the most frequently occurring residues at each CDR position based on natural antibody diversity. This mutagenesis approach results in antibody libraries with variants that have a wide range of numbers of CDR mutations, including antibody domains with single mutations and others with tens of mutations. Finally, we sort the modest size libraries (~10 million variants) displayed on the surface of yeast to identify CDR mutations with the greatest increases in affinity. Importantly, we find that single-domain (VHH) antibodies specific for the α-synuclein protein (whose aggregation is associated with Parkinson’s disease) with the greatest gains in affinity (>5-fold) have several (four to six) CDR mutations. This finding highlights the importance of sampling combinations of CDR mutations during the first step of affinity maturation to maximize the efficiency of the process. Interestingly, we find that some natural diversity mutations simultaneously enhance all three key antibody properties (affinity, specificity, and stability) while other mutations enhance some of these properties (e.g., increased specificity) and display trade-offs in others (e.g., reduced affinity and/or stability). Computational modeling reveals that improvements in affinity are generally not due to direct interactions involving CDR mutations but rather due to indirect effects that enhance existing interactions and/or promote new interactions between the antigen and wild-type CDR residues. We expect that natural diversity mutagenesis will be useful for efficient affinity maturation of a wide range of antibody fragments and full-length antibodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn E Tiller
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, United States
| | - Ratul Chowdhury
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States
| | - Tong Li
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States
| | - Seth D Ludwig
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, United States
| | - Sabyasachi Sen
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, United States
| | - Costas D Maranas
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States
| | - Peter M Tessier
- Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, United States
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