Fusion of an albumin-binding domain extends the half-life of immunotoxins

Abstract

Immunotoxins have documented potential as a cancer treatment due to their extreme potency; a single toxin molecule delivered to the cytosol may be sufficient to kill a cell. However, their short half-life in the circulatory system may be one of the key problems associated with the clinical use of immunotoxins and may continue to limit their therapeutic activity. Herein, we genetically fused an albumin-binding domain (ABD) to the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-specific immunotoxin ZHER2-PE38 to extend the circulation time and thus improve the therapeutic outcome of this immunotoxin. Furthermore, the fusion of an ABD to the immunotoxin was found to promote non-covalent interactions between the immunotoxin and serum albumin, which rescue the immunotoxin from lysosomal degradation through a serum albumin-mediated interaction with the neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn). This manuscript reports the construction, purification, and characterization of the ABD-fused HER2-specific immunotoxin, ABD-ZHER2-PE38, both in vitro and in vivo. Compared with non-fused ZHER2-PE38, this new construct exhibits a clearly increased half-life in plasma (330.8 versus 13.5min, approximately 24.4-fold extension) and remarkably improved antitumor effects in an NCI-N87 subcutaneous xenograft model. Therefore, the new construct represents a potentially attractive therapeutic modality, and the proposed strategy may also have useful applications for current immunotoxin designs.