Antibody Mediated Transduction of Therapeutic Proteins into Living Cells

Abstract

Protein therapy refers to the direct delivery of therapeutic proteins to cells and tissues with the goal of ameliorating or modifying a disease process. Current techniques for delivering proteins across cell membranes include taking advantage of receptor-mediated endocytosis or using protein transduction domains that penetrate directly into cells. The most commonly used protein transduction domains are small cell-penetrating peptides derived from such proteins as the HIV-1 Tat protein. A novel protein transduction domain developed as the single chain fragment (Fv) of a murine anti-DNA autoantibody, mAb 3E10, has recently been developed and used to deliver biologically active proteins to living cells in vitro. This review will provide a brief overview of the development of the Fv fragment and provide a summary of recent studies using Fv to deliver therapeutic peptides and proteins (such as a C-terminal p53 peptide, C-terminal p53 antibody fragment, full-length p53, and micro-dystrophin) to cells.