| 1. |
- Andersson, Ken G., 1987-
(författare)
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Combinatorial Protein Engineering Of Affibody Molecules Using E. Coli Display And Rational Design Of Affibody-Based Tracers For Medical Imaging
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Directed evolution is today an established strategy for generation of new affinity proteins. This thesis describes the development of a cell-display method using Escherichia coli for directed evolution of Affibody molecules. Further, the thesis describes rational design of Affibody-based tracers, intended for future patient stratification using medical imaging. Fusing recombinant proteins to various autotransporters is a promising approach for efficient surface display on the surface of E. coli, as well as for construction of high-complexity libraries. In paper I, we successfully engineered an expression vector for display of Affibody molecules using the autotransporter AIDA-I. In paper II, a large Affibody library of 2.3x109 variants was constructed and screening using FACS resulted in new specific binders in the nanomolar range. In paper III, we demonstrated Sortase-mediated secretion and conjugation of binders directly from the E. coli surface. The three following studies describe rational design of Affibody-based tracers against two cancer-associated targets for molecular imaging. First, anti-HER3 Affibody molecules were labelled with 111In, and SPECT imaging showed that the conjugates specifically targeted HER3-expressing xenografts. Furthermore, labeling with 68Ga for PET imaging showed that tumor uptake correlated with HER3 expression, suggesting that the tracers have potential for patient stratification. The last study describes the development and investigation of anti-EGFR Affibody-based imaging agents. Labeled with 89Zr, the Affibody tracer demonstrated higher tumor uptake at 3 h post injection than the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab at 48 h post injection. In conclusion, this thesis describes new tools and knowledge that will hopefully contribute to the development of affinity proteins for biotechnology, therapy and medical imaging in the future.
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| 2. |
- Ding, Haozhong, 1990-
(författare)
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Targeting HER2-expressing tumors with potent drug conjugates and fusion toxins based on scaffold proteins
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Targeted therapy is an emerging treatment for a variety of cancers. Small- sized scaffold proteins are an alternative to conventional antibody-based targeting molecules. Two small scaffold proteins—the 58-amino-acid protein class, the affibody molecules, and the 46-amino-acid protein class, the Albumin binding domain Derived Affinity Proteins (ADAPTs)—have previously been engineered to bind to a large variety of tumor-associated molecular targets with a high affinity. The human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is a membrane-bound receptor for growth signal transmission. Expression of a high level of HER2 can cause cells to proliferate and may ultimately lead to cancer. It has earlier been shown that HER2 is involved in several different types of cancers, e.g., breast, ovarian, bladder, and gastric cancers. HER2-targeted affibody and ADAPT molecules have previously been developed, such as ZHER2:2891 and ADAPT6 with strong affinity to HER2 with equilibrium dissociation constants of 76 pM and 2.5 nM, respectively. Their small size and high specificity have rendered these two scaffold proteins promising candidates for imaging of HER2-positive breast cancer tumors in clinical trials. Delivery of cytotoxic agents to cancer cells, using a cell-targeting domain, may potentially precisely kill the cancer cells while having very low cytotoxic effects on normal cells. Many cancer-targeted antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) and toxic proteins (immunotoxins) have advanced the field of cancer treatment. Small-sized scaffold proteins hold promise as alternative targeting domains to build novel drug conjugates or fusion toxins for cancer treatment. In this thesis, I first investigated an affibody-based drug conjugate (AffiDC) composed of an anti-HER2 affibody and an anti-mitotic maytansine-derived drug (DM1) for treatment of HER2-overexpressing cells. I studied a variety of targeting domain formats for efficacy optimization. All ZHER2:2891-based AffiDCs showed specific anti-tumor activity on HER2-overexpressing cancer cells in vitro as well as in mouse tumor xenografts. The hepatic uptake of the AffiDCs could be reduced by shielding the hydrophobic DM1 using a poly-glutamic-acid spacer, which might help to reduce potential liver toxicity allowing for administration of higher doses. In addition, tuning the valency of the affibody-targeting domain (ZHER2) from a divalent domain to a monovalent domain showed increased potency and reduced liver uptake. We also investigated the influence of the number of drug payloads on the pharmacokinetic profile of the AffiDCs. An AffiDC bearing three DM1s showed higher delivery of DM1 to the cancer cells in vivo, but fast blood clearance and an elevated liver retention was also observed. With regards to fusion toxin design, we constructed a variety of recombinant toxins. The targeting domains were ZHER2:2891 and/or ADAPT6, which were genetically fused with truncated versions of the highly cytotoxic Pseudomonas Exotoxin A (PE). All fusion toxins we studied showed potent HER2-specific anti-tumor activity. The results suggested that both ZHER2:2891 and ADAPT6 could direct the PE-based cytotoxins specifically to HER2- overexpressing cancer cells. In this work, we have demonstrated the potential of using ZHER2:2891 and ADAPT6 as targeting domains to carry the small molecule drug DM1, or cytotoxic PE-derived peptides to cancer cells. It can be concluded that careful molecular design of the targeting domain may considerably improve the potency and minimize the off-target uptake.
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| 3. |
- Ekblad, Torun, 1977-
(författare)
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Chemical Synthesis of Affibody Molecules for Protein Detection and Molecular Imaging
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Proteins are essential components in most processes in living organisms. The detection and quantification of specific proteins can be used e.g. as measures of certain physiological conditions, and are therefore of great importance. This thesis focuses on development of affinity-based bioassays for specific protein detection. The use of Affibody molecules for specific molecular recognition has been central in all studies in this thesis. Affibody molecules are affinity proteins developed by combinatorial protein engineering of the 58-residue protein A-derived Z domain scaffold. In the first paper, solid phase peptide synthesis is investigated as a method to generate functional Affibody molecules. Based on the results from this paper, chemical synthesis has been used throughout the following papers to produce Affibody molecules tailored with functional groups for protein detection applications in vitro and in vivo. In paper I, an orthogonal protection scheme was developed to enable site-specific chemical introduction of three different functional probes into synthetic Affibody molecules. Two of the probes were fluorophores that were used in a FRET-based binding assay to detect unlabeled target proteins. The third probe was biotin, which was used as an affinity handle for immobilization onto a solid support. In paper II, a panel of Affibody molecules carrying different affinity handles were synthesized and evaluated as capture ligands on microarrays. Paper III describes the synthesis of an Affibody molecule that binds to the human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2, (HER2), and the site-specific incorporation of a mercaptoacetyl-glycylglycylglycine (MAG3) chelating site in the peptide sequence to allow for radiolabeling with 99mTc. The derivatized Affibody molecule was found to retain its binding capacity, and the 99mTc-labeling was efficient and resulted in a stable chelate formation. 99mTc-labeled Affibody molecules were evaluated as in vivo HER2-targeting imaging agents in mice. In the following studies, reported in papers IV-VI, the 99mTc-chelating sequence was engineered in order to optimize the pharmacokinetic properties of the radiolabeled Affibody molecules and allow for high-contrast imaging of HER2-expressing tumors and metastatic lesions. The main conclusion from these investigations is that the biodistribution of Affibody molecules can be dramatically modified by amino acid substitutions directed to residues in the MAG3-chelator. Finally, paper VII is a report on the chemical synthesis and chemoselective ligation to generate a cross-linked HER2-binding Affibody molecule with improved thermal stability and tumor targeting capacity. Taken together, the studies presented in this thesis illustrate how peptide synthesis can be used for production and modification of small affinity proteins, such as Affibody molecules for protein detection applications.
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| 4. |
- Fleetwood, Filippa, 1985-
(författare)
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Bacterial display systems for engineering of affinity proteins
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Directed evolution is a powerful method for engineering of specific affinity proteins such as antibodies and alternative scaffold proteins. For selections from combinatorial protein libraries, robust and high-throughput selection platforms are needed. An attractive technology for this purpose is cell surface display, offering many advantages, such as the quantitative isolation of high-affinity library members using flow-cytometric cell sorting. This thesis describes the development, evaluation and use of bacterial display technologies for the engineering of affinity proteins.Affinity proteins used in therapeutic and diagnostic applications commonly aim to specifically bind to disease-related drug targets. Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels from pre-existing vasculature, is a critical process in various types of cancer and vascular eye disorders. Vascular Growth Factor Receptor 2 (VEGFR2) is one of the main regulators of angiogenesis. The first two studies presented in this thesis describe the engineering of a biparatopic Affibody molecule targeting VEGFR2, intended for therapeutic and in vivo imaging applications. Monomeric VEGFR2-specific Affibody molecules were generated by combining phage and staphylococcal display technologies, and the engineering of two Affibody molecules, targeting distinct epitopes on VEGFR2 into a biparatopic construct, resulted in a dramatic increase in affinity. The biparatopic construct was able to block the ligand VEGF-A from binding to VEGFR2-expressing cells, resulting in an efficient inhibition of VEGFR2 phosphorylation and angiogenesis-like tube formation in vitro.In the third study, the staphylococcal display system was evaluated for the selection from a single-domain antibody library. This was the first demonstration of successful selection from an antibody-based library on Gram-positive bacteria. A direct comparison to the selection from the same library displayed on phage resulted in different sets of binders, and higher affinities among the clones selected by staphylococcal display. These results highlight the importance of choosing a display system that is suitable for the intended application.The last study describes the development and evaluation of an autotransporter-based display system intended for display of Affibody libraries on E. coli. A dual-purpose expression vector was designed, allowing efficient display of Affibody molecules, as well as small-scale protein production and purification of selected candidates without the need for sub-cloning. The use of E. coli would allow the display of large Affibody libraries due to a high transformation frequency. In combination with the facilitated means for protein production, this system has potential to improve the throughput of the engineering process of Affibody molecules.In summary, this thesis describes the development, evaluation and use of bacterial display systems for engineering of affinity proteins. The results demonstrate great potential of these display systems and the generated affinity proteins for future biotechnological and therapeutic use.
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