Title
Identification of new DR5 agonistic nanobodies and generation of multivalent nanobody constructs for cancer treatment
Date Issued
01 October 2019
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Sadeghnezhad G.
Romão E.
Massa S.
Khajeh K.
Muyldermans S.
Hassania S.
University of Nova Gorica
Publisher(s)
MDPI AG
Abstract
Current cancer therapeutics suffer from a lack of specificity in targeting tumor cells and cause severe side effects. Therefore, the design of highly specialized drugs comprising antibody derivatives inducing apoptosis in targeted cancer cells is considered to be a promising strategy. Drugs acting on death receptor 5 (DR5) such as DR5 agonist antibodies replacing “TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand” (TRAIL) offer feasible opportunities in this direction. Although such agonists provided good antitumor activity in preclinical studies, they were less effective in clinical studies, possibly due to a disturbed Fc interaction with Fc-γ receptors. Thus, multimerized antigen binding fragments without Fc have been proposed to increase their efficacy. We generated nanobodies (Nbs), recombinant variable domains of heavy chain-only antibodies of camelids, against the DR5 ectodomain. Nb24 and Nb28 had an affinity in the nM and sub-nM range, but only Nb28 competes with TRAIL for binding to DR5. Bivalent, trivalent, and tetravalent constructs were generated, as well as an innovative pentameric Nb complex, to provoke avidity effects. In our cellular assays, these trimeric, tetrameric, and pentameric Nbs have a higher apoptotic capacity than monomeric Nbs and seem to mimic the activity of the natural TRAIL ligand on various cancer cells.
Volume
20
Issue
19
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Oncología
Bioquímica, Biología molecular
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85072763007
PubMed ID
Source
International Journal of Molecular Sciences
ISSN of the container
16616596
Sponsor(s)
We thank the experimental support of Shirin Jalili and Ammar Mohseni (both from the Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Teheran, Iran) in generating the Nb library and performing the pannings to retrieve DR5 specific Nbs. G.S. was supported by a fellowship from the Ministry of Science Research and Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran and from the Tarbiat Modares University in Teheran. E.R. was supported by the “Kom op tegen Kanker” fellowship.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus