Chemical production of cytotoxic bispecific antibodies using the Ugi multicomponent reaction

Valentine Vaur, Ilias Koutsopetras, Stéphane Erb, Bianka Jackowska, Rania Benazza, Héloïse Cahuzac, Alexandre Detappe, Oscar Hernandez-Alba, Sarah Cianférani, Christopher J. Scott, Guilhem Chaubet*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
8 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Bispecific antibodies (bsAbs) have recently emerged as a promising platform for the treatment of several conditions, most importantly cancer. Based on the combination of two different antigen‐binding motifs in a single macromolecule; bsAbs can either display the combined characteristics of their parent antibodies, or new therapeutic features, inaccessible by the sole combination of two distinct antibodies. While bsAbs are traditionally produced by molecular biology techniques, the chemical development of bsAbs holds great promises and strategies have just begun to surface. In this context, we took advantage of a chemical strategy based on the use of the Ugi reaction for the site‐selective conjugation of whole antibodies and coupled the resulting conjugates in a bioorthogonal manner with Fab fragments, derived from various antibodies. We thus managed to produce five different bsAbs with 2:1 valency, with yields ranging from 20% to 48%, and showed that the affinity of the parent antibody was preserved in all bsAbs. We further demonstrated the interest of our strategy by producing two other bsAbs behaving as cytotoxic T cell engagers with IC50 values in the picomolar range in vitro.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere202400170
Number of pages8
JournalChemBioChem
Early online date26 Jun 2024
DOIs
Publication statusEarly online date - 26 Jun 2024

Keywords

  • antibodies
  • bioconjugation
  • cancer
  • chemical biology

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