antibody-drug conjugates; a novel class of cancer treatment

Milad Chizari,1 Sahel amoozadeh,2 Parastoo tarighi,3,*

1. Department of medical biotechnology, Faculty of allied medicine, Iran University of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran
2. Department of medical biotechnology, Faculty of allied medicine, Iran University of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran
3. Department of medical biotechnology, Faculty of allied medicine, Iran University of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction

One of the most effective therapeutic agents used in targeted cancer therapies is antibody. due to lack of permeability of antibodies in solid tumors, naked antibodies have relatively less therapeutic effects. on the other hand, chemotherapy agents used in cancer treatments rapidly target cancerous cells while targeting the normal cells as well. due to these obstacles, a new class of cancer treatment has been emerged. antibody- drug conjugates (adcs) are antibodies conjugated to cytotoxic agents which effectively deliver the drug to cancerous cells. in this review we focus on enhancing and optimizing adcs based on the compartments involved in adcs in order to develop a functional adc.

Methods

We went through reviewed articles which were published between 2013 and 2017; using different search engines; including ncbi, scopus and google scholar.

Results

Adcs have four crucial factors including target antigen, antibody, linker and payload. the ideal antigen should be localized to the cell-surface and internalized after adc binding. high specificity of the antibody for the tumor antigen is essential. moreover, antibody must have low immunogenicity and a long- half life. as the drug plays an important role in adc activity, linker must be stable in circulation, and compatible for conjugating to the antibody. the last key factor for the success of an adc is and payload which must be high potent, stable and amenable to conjugation.

Conclusion

Adcs are a family of cancer therapies designed to improve drug potency and enable specific drug delivery to cancerous cells avoiding toxicity to normal cells.

Keywords

Cancer, targeted therapy, antibody-drug conjugates, adc